Note: I’ve written a new post entitled Samuel Adams Boston Ale Clone if you’re looking for a Boston Ale recipe. The process of figuring out the clone can still be seen below and in the original post.
I decided I’d go for a simple recipe for my brew session this weekend. So, I figured it was time to try to pay homage to Samuel Adams Boston Ale, which is a delicious Stock Ale. The lovely thing about trying to clone a Sam Adams recipe is that they provide you with a lot of useful information to start with.
From the website, we know:
Color: Red to Amber
Original Gravity: 13 Plato (1.053 SG)
Alcohol: 5.1% ABV / 4.0% ABW
Malt: Two Row Pale, Caramel 60
Hops: Spalt Spalter, East Kent Goldings, Fuggles
Yeast Strain: “Top-fermenting ale yeast” (theirs is proprietary)
“Keeping with the Stock Ale style, Samuel Adams® Boston Ale is fermented at cooler almost lager like temperatures and conditioned much longer than most ales. It also is Krausened and dry hopped.”
It also has fruit and ester notes with a smooth, round finish.
Okay, time to start paying homage (I’m saying “homage” because I don’t know if it’s a clone just yet)!
We know they krausen (add freshly-fermenting or unfermented wort to carbonate) and dry hop. We're going to dry hop this sucker for a week, starting after a week of fermentation (at least a day after primary is complete). This will probably produce more hop flavor and aroma than Boston Ale (which I'd think is more like 3 days), but I want that flavor myself, and this is an "homage." As for adding freshly-fermenting (or unfermented) wort to carbonate, I don't want to brew a mini-batch of beer to do it, so I'm using corn sugar or DME.
As for the yeast, we know they ferment at “almost lager like temperatures.” What this means to me is that they ferment around 60 °F using an ale yeast that can handle it, but they probably let the temperature rise to get some additional ester production. So, we’re looking for a yeast strain that has a fruity character and can cover a wide range of temperatures, starting around 60 °F. To me, that means Wyeast American Ale II, which has an impressive range of 60-72 °F and the character we want (I started the search with White Labs East Coast Ale Yeast, but it can’t handle the low temperatures).
On to the malt. To me, it tastes very English on the malt end. So, I’ve chosen Maris Otter and a British Crystal 60. Knowing that I don’t want to go over about 10% on the caramel malt and our target gravity, the proportion was rather quick to determine.
Finally, the water profile. This beer is somewhat malty and has a smooth, round finish, so I'm going for at least 100ppm of chloride and a ratio of around 1.5 chloride/sulfate. Given the color, a Residual Alkalinity of ~36 is appropriate. I'm giving ppm rather than grams because everyone has a different system. For me, I'm using an electric fryer with a pretty high ratio of water to grist (2 quarts water per pound of grain).
Without further ado, I give you Mad Alchemist New England Ale (5 gallon all-grain recipe):
Ingredients
Target Profile
Process
I’m going to do a single step mash at 154 °F for medium body in the beer. I will boil the wort for 90 minutes. The first 0.5 oz of each variety of hops will be added with 60 minutes left in the boil. 0.25 oz of each variety of hops will be added with 15 minutes left in the boil. 0.25 oz of each variety of hops will be added to secondary after one week of fermentation, and will be allowed to dry hop for one week.
When I add the wort to the fermentor, it will be at 60 °F. I’ll allow it to rise naturally to 68 °F. After fermentation is complete, I’ll add ~4.4 oz corn sugar when bottling to achieve carbonation of 2.5 volumes at 68 °F. I’m going to let this ale age for at least a month before drinking, and more likely two months. I would age it at cooler temperatures (55-60° F) if I had the ability to do so.
I’ll let you know how it turns out!
I decided I’d go for a simple recipe for my brew session this weekend. So, I figured it was time to try to pay homage to Samuel Adams Boston Ale, which is a delicious Stock Ale. The lovely thing about trying to clone a Sam Adams recipe is that they provide you with a lot of useful information to start with.
From the website, we know:
Color: Red to Amber
Original Gravity: 13 Plato (1.053 SG)
Alcohol: 5.1% ABV / 4.0% ABW
Malt: Two Row Pale, Caramel 60
Hops: Spalt Spalter, East Kent Goldings, Fuggles
Yeast Strain: “Top-fermenting ale yeast” (theirs is proprietary)
“Keeping with the Stock Ale style, Samuel Adams® Boston Ale is fermented at cooler almost lager like temperatures and conditioned much longer than most ales. It also is Krausened and dry hopped.”
It also has fruit and ester notes with a smooth, round finish.
Okay, time to start paying homage (I’m saying “homage” because I don’t know if it’s a clone just yet)!
We know they krausen (add freshly-fermenting or unfermented wort to carbonate) and dry hop. We're going to dry hop this sucker for a week, starting after a week of fermentation (at least a day after primary is complete). This will probably produce more hop flavor and aroma than Boston Ale (which I'd think is more like 3 days), but I want that flavor myself, and this is an "homage." As for adding freshly-fermenting (or unfermented) wort to carbonate, I don't want to brew a mini-batch of beer to do it, so I'm using corn sugar or DME.
As for the yeast, we know they ferment at “almost lager like temperatures.” What this means to me is that they ferment around 60 °F using an ale yeast that can handle it, but they probably let the temperature rise to get some additional ester production. So, we’re looking for a yeast strain that has a fruity character and can cover a wide range of temperatures, starting around 60 °F. To me, that means Wyeast American Ale II, which has an impressive range of 60-72 °F and the character we want (I started the search with White Labs East Coast Ale Yeast, but it can’t handle the low temperatures).
On to the malt. To me, it tastes very English on the malt end. So, I’ve chosen Maris Otter and a British Crystal 60. Knowing that I don’t want to go over about 10% on the caramel malt and our target gravity, the proportion was rather quick to determine.
Finally, the water profile. This beer is somewhat malty and has a smooth, round finish, so I'm going for at least 100ppm of chloride and a ratio of around 1.5 chloride/sulfate. Given the color, a Residual Alkalinity of ~36 is appropriate. I'm giving ppm rather than grams because everyone has a different system. For me, I'm using an electric fryer with a pretty high ratio of water to grist (2 quarts water per pound of grain).
Without further ado, I give you Mad Alchemist New England Ale (5 gallon all-grain recipe):
Ingredients
- Maris Otter (9 lbs)
- British Crystal 60 (1 lb)
- Hops: 1 oz Fuggles, 1 oz East Kent Goldings, 1 oz Spalt
- Yeast: American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272), 2000 ml starter
- Water: Calcium (86 ppm), Sodium (45 ppm), Sulfate (68 ppm), Chloride (102 ppm), Bicarbonate (119 ppm)
Target Profile
- Original Gravity: 1.053 SG
- Final Gravity: 1.013 SG
- Color: 10.6 SRM
- Bitterness: 31 IBU
- Alcohol by Volume: 5.14%
- Carbonation: 2.5 volumes
Process
I’m going to do a single step mash at 154 °F for medium body in the beer. I will boil the wort for 90 minutes. The first 0.5 oz of each variety of hops will be added with 60 minutes left in the boil. 0.25 oz of each variety of hops will be added with 15 minutes left in the boil. 0.25 oz of each variety of hops will be added to secondary after one week of fermentation, and will be allowed to dry hop for one week.
When I add the wort to the fermentor, it will be at 60 °F. I’ll allow it to rise naturally to 68 °F. After fermentation is complete, I’ll add ~4.4 oz corn sugar when bottling to achieve carbonation of 2.5 volumes at 68 °F. I’m going to let this ale age for at least a month before drinking, and more likely two months. I would age it at cooler temperatures (55-60° F) if I had the ability to do so.
I’ll let you know how it turns out!