The beers I brew (i'm a cloner)

[NBABUCKS1]

Caution, boring diatribe (possible drunken rambling?) ahead.

I live on an island in the ocean in Alaska and we don't get a whole lot of distro around here of "good beers". Basically we get:

1. Deschuttes- awesome love it. Every beer They put out is great.
2. Ak brewing company - only beer of thiers worth a dam is the smoked porter.
3. Red hook - meh
4. Weidmiere - mehpaloza.


We do get midnight sun (best brewery in ak bar none..such a ballsy fun brewery) but I don't want to pay $5 a bomber.

Also we get NO seasonals up here. It sucks.

So to address the thread title I almost exclusively brew clone beers because I want to drink the beers I have tried that i love that I can't get. Also im new and I'm nowhere near recipe development.


Good day

 

[KYB]

$5/bomber is not bad at all, assuming it's a good beer of course.

The only beer I've brewed that hasn't been my own recipe from scratch has been my first (I was tempted to come up with my own for that too). All grain from the start. It's easy. Just read up on things and dive in once you have a good understanding. I started by figuring out what style I wanted to brew, then looking up different recipes for it to get a rough idea, then looking up style guidlines, while at the same time looking at descriptions of different hops/grains/yeasts on BYO website under resources. Then I threw a recipe together. So far it's worked great for me.

You should pick a style you interested in and throw something together. Then change it up each time until it's awesome. Much more enjoyable IMO.

 

[AKnewbrews]

Nbabucks- Hello from Anchorage! To be honest $5 for a bomber of Midnight Sun isn't too shabby at all, we live around the corner from the brewery and that's pretty much what we pay. But we can also have growlers filled for an even better deal.
But you're right, MSBC is the best in AK, amazing and creative beers. I'd like to see them go national, it would be amazing.

 

[GateWay]

Do you get anything from the Yukon Brewing Company? Their Yukon Red Amber is supposed to be pretty good if you like that style of beer.

 

[ILuvIPA]

Caution, boring diatribe (possible drunken rambling?) ahead.

. . . Also im new and I'm nowhere near recipe development.


Good day

Bravo for going down that road. If you haven't already, get a copy of "Designing Great Beers" by Ray Daniels. Zero recipes or "how to brew" in the book. What you get is: A) a system for designing a recipe for a given beer, and B) a ton of research showing what malts/hops/etc are most commonly used in a given style. The data base for that second one is primarily award winning HB competitions with a smattering of commercial beer info as well.

That book is a must have for recipe development and/or cloning. From the lower 48, stay warm up there! :rockin:

 

[Fantastical]

I actually really like redhook. We don't get it up here in Canada but when I was in Washington last summer they had a couple great beers.

 

[SPLASTiK]

If you're looking for clones check out Jamil Show/Can You Brew It? on The Brewing Network.

Deschutes-wise they've done interviews with the brewer and have clone recipes straight from the brewer for Obsidian Stout, Black Butte Porter, and Mirror Pond.

 

[AKnewbrews]

I just had some beer from Kodiak Brewing that a friend of mine brought back after a visit. It was great beer in my opinion. I think it was some seasonal that they had.

 

[philrose]

If you're looking for clones check out Jamil Show/Can You Brew It? on The Brewing Network.

Deschutes-wise they've done interviews with the brewer and have clone recipes straight from the brewer for Obsidian Stout, Black Butte Porter, and Mirror Pond.

The black butte porter recipe is so dead on it's creepy.

The lagunitas beers seemed good too, I only brewed one of the beers but it was really good if op is looking for some variety.

 

[stageseven]

Bravo for going down that road. If you haven't already, get a copy of "Designing Great Beers" by Ray Daniels. Zero recipes or "how to brew" in the book. What you get is: A) a system for designing a recipe for a given beer, and B) a ton of research showing what malts/hops/etc are most commonly used in a given style. The data base for that second one is primarily award winning HB competitions with a smattering of commercial beer info as well.

That book is a must have for recipe development and/or cloning. From the lower 48, stay warm up there! :rockin:

Am I the only one who thought this book was terrible and useless? There was some decent info on process, but nothing that can't be picked up here. The recipe formulation was the most disappointing part for me, only covering certain styles (he completely ignores Belgian beers) and basically giving you a list of common ingredients in a particular category from a particular year or set of years. My problem with that is we can just go to the recipe database here and get very similar information. I really didn't see the point to the book when all the same or better info is available here for free.

 

[ILuvIPA]

Am I the only one who thought this book was terrible and useless? There was some decent info on process, but nothing that can't be picked up here. The recipe formulation was the most disappointing part for me, only covering certain styles (he completely ignores Belgian beers) and basically giving you a list of common ingredients in a particular category from a particular year or set of years. My problem with that is we can just go to the recipe database here and get very similar information. I really didn't see the point to the book when all the same or better info is available here for free.

I had a similar reaction first time I picked up the book & just thumbed through. But after several months of haphazard tweeks of other recipes (data bases) I wasn't getting what I wanted. I brewed a different beer every weekend. . .but not what I was after.

Went back to the Daniels book and actually read it. My take is he's teaching a recipe design method nothing more. Approaching the book on that basis completely turned my opinion of the book. It helps me a ton & I refer to it frequently the night (days) before brew day. It's another tool in the arsenal. . .YMMV

BTW, he was on The Sunday Session a few years ago and addressed the lack of Belgians. Basically said at the time he wrote Designing he knew nothing about Belgians. Any way, if you just want recipes you're right, this is not the book.

 

[LiquidAthlete]

I started getting a good feel for my recipies at this sight http://hopville.com/ .