Many homebrewers enjoy the thrill of developing recipes and the feeling of creating something brand new. But there's actually a huge benefit to doing exactly the opposite. Creating an exact copy of a commercial beer is a fun and extremely rewarding way to test your skills as a brewer.
Why I Clone
In addition to all the other reasons homebrewing is a fulfilling hobby, these are some of the reasons I especially enjoy cloning commercial beers:
How to Clone Your Favorite Beer
Do you have a favorite beer you'd like to clone? Consider some of these tips as you work towards making it your own.
Some of my all-time favorite homebrews have been clones. Here are a few recipes for you to try:
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation homebrewer and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better beer for over 25 years and writes and edits for the E. C. Kraus Beer Brewing & Wine Making Blog.
Why I Clone
In addition to all the other reasons homebrewing is a fulfilling hobby, these are some of the reasons I especially enjoy cloning commercial beers:
- It's a challenge: Cloning commercial beers is an inherently difficult thing to do, but as with many homebrewers, I feel inspired by the challenge. There are so many variations in ingredients and procedures involved in brewing that making an exact duplicate of a beer is not an easy thing to do. A half-ounce of hops or a few degrees difference in fermentation temperature can make all the difference between a clone and "pretty close."
- Brew a tried and true recipe: Many pro brewers are happy to share scaled down versions of their recipes and it's fairly easy to find them in books, brewing magazines, and online. When brewing a clone recipe from a commercial brewer, you know that the recipe is a good one. It's up to you to brew it to the best of your abilities.
- Develop an understanding of how ingredients work together: By studying commercial beers, you can begin to develop an inherent knowledge of how different ingredients come together to create flavors in beer,. Whether you're working from a pro brewer's recipe or doing the research and trial and error to develop your own, cloning will take you one step closer to mastering the wide range of homebrewing ingredients.
- Break convention: One of the great things about cloning is discovering when and how you might break the rules. A good example of this is with Uinta's Dubhe Imperial Black IPA. It uses six-row malt, loads of specialty malt, toasted hemp seeds, and a 21-day dry hop. You probably won't see any of these is a book of beginning homebrew recipes, but knowing that they can create an absolutely bodacious beer helps open your mind to the world of possibility.
- A clear metric for success: When cloning a commercial beer, you have an easy way to test your skills in brewing and recipe development. All it takes is a side-by-side taste test with the beer being cloned. The clone may not always be a perfect match, but chances are you'll still end up with a pretty good beer.
How to Clone Your Favorite Beer
Do you have a favorite beer you'd like to clone? Consider some of these tips as you work towards making it your own.
- Taste the Beer: First you have to know what you're working towards, and to do this, you need one of your strongest tools as a brewer your palate! Get yourself a couple bottles of your favorite beer and dissect it. Evaluate everything: color, flavor, aroma, appearance, mouthfeel. What are the dominant flavor characteristics? How about some of the more subtle notes? How would you describe the interplay between malt, hops, and yeast? Leave no stone unturned, and consider enlisting a friend to help with the tasting.
- Research: Search online for recipes for the beer you're trying to clone. You may come across someone who has had success before. Review the brewery's website to get all the information you can about the beer, including ingredients, specs, and processes.
- Build a Recipe: Use your favorite brewing software to develop a recipe for the beer, matching the stats with the commercial brew. You might look at recipes for similar beers to fill in some gaps. Do your best to match each of the ingredients you'll be using to the characteristics of the beer you're cloning.
- Contact the Brewer: If you get stuck, try contacting the brewer for tips. Most of them started out as homebrewers, so they might be willing to help you out. Try contacting them through Twitter or LinkedIn. They may even be willing to review your recipe and offer some suggestions.
- Take Notes: on brew day When you're ready to brew the beer, be sure to take meticulous notes. Record volumes, times, temperatures everything you can think of. If you ever want to brew the beer again, these notes will be invaluable for replicating the beer or correcting your mistakes.
- Brew it Again: Your first attempt at the clone may not be a perfect match. To really test your skills as a brewer, brew the beer again, building on your strengths and doing your best to improve the aspects of the beer that aren't quite right. It may take several attempts to get it just right, but when you do, you'll know you have a winner!
Some of my all-time favorite homebrews have been clones. Here are a few recipes for you to try:
- Uinta Dubhe Imperial Black IPA Clone: A bold, rich black IPA, practically off the charts in terms of bitterness, hop flavor, and gravity. 9.2% ABV, 120+ IBUs, 40+ SRM
- Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA Clone: An IPA from one of the best, with prominent citrus and spice flavors from Magnum, Crystal, and Citra hops. 7.2% ABV, 65 IBUs, 10 SRM
- Paulaner Hefe-Weizen Clone: Wheat beers like this one are great for summer drinking, featuring refreshing flavors of bread, banana, citrus, and clove. 5.4% ABV, 10 IBUs, 4-5 SRM
- Yuengling Lager Clone: This Vienna-style lager is easy drinking with low bitterness and subtle notes of caramel and toasted malt. 4.4% ABV, 13 IBUs, 10 SRM
- Ithaca Beer Co.'s Flower Power IPA Clone: A bright, citrusy IPA with malty sweet notes of honey. 7.5% ABV, 77 IBUs, 9 SRM
- Fuller's London Porter Clone: A shining example of a British porter and a great beer to boot. 5.4% ABV, 35 IBUs, 34 SRM
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation homebrewer and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better beer for over 25 years and writes and edits for the E. C. Kraus Beer Brewing & Wine Making Blog.