Begin Brewing!

The Matt Groening television series Futurama has long been one of my favorites.  On that show, the robot named Bender was frequently seen chugging bottles of a beer called Olde Fortran Malt Liquor.  There's no way to guess how a fictional beer on an animated television show might taste. We can guess from the label, which is a parody of Olde English Malt Liquor, that it might be something like that. The American Home Brewing Association web site listed a clone recipe for Olde English. I started there. Since Bender belches fire after drinking Olde Fortran, I figure it has to be a strong beer. Since it's implied in several episodes that Bender has no taste buds (though this is sometimes contradicted), it's probably a cheap lowest-common-denominator kind of mash. I'm going with 6-row malt and a fair amount of flaked corn for the grist.  Since I want it to have at least some flavor, I'm going to add Mandarina Bavaria hops at the 15 and 5 minute marks to impart some ...

Probably my favorite Saison out there is Saison Dupont.  I recently read Jeff Alworth's  The Secrets of the Master Brewers  and reviewed his notes about how Dupont's beer is made.  I used this to inform my own Saison recipe which will hopefully come close to it. A few notes from Alworth's book, for those thinking of making a Saison: Dupont uses untreated (but very hard) hard water from their well to brew the beer, and they don't consider it to be a crucial element in the beer's flavor. Although Dupont uses a 90-minute boil over an open flame (to deepen the color), you should be able to use a 60-minute boil if you add a color malt to the grist. Dupont's strain of yeast was the basis for Wyeast 3724 and White Labs WLP565).  This strain doesn't do well at low temperatures and needs good aeration to avoid stalling out.  Dupont uses 100% pilsner malt. Dupont mashes in at 113F, then raises the temperature slowly over the next 1.75 hours until it reac...

I suspect that most home brewers are drawn to the hobby when they taste a craft beer and wonder how it was made, or how it might taste if the recipe was altered slightly.  This kind of curiosity drives us to seek out recipes that come as close as possible to our favorite craft beers, so that we can reproduce or improve upon that brew.   Clone Brews  by Tess and Mark Szamatulski is an excellent resource in that quest.  They run a home brew shop and spent many hours working out recipes to clone 200 of their favorite beers, sharing those recipes in this book. Among the 200 recipes in this book, you'll find clone recipes for Grolsch Premium Lager, Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock, Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome, Traquair House Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Moose Drool, Dragon Stout, Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, Lagunitas IPA, Aventinus Wheat Doppelbock, and more. Being a fan of Belgian and Belgian-style ales, I was particularly impressed with that section of the book. ...