Beer Captured recipes

[Grog]

I am curious to hear from those who have tried recipes out of this book. How close do they actually get to the target beer? I am going to try to clone my favorite beer, but I was just curious if others were finding success with the recipes from this book?

[kevin]

I got that book an use it more as a rererence than doing the recipe tic for tac. I always tend to need to tinker the recipe.

[BluesHarp]

I made the Westmalle Trappiste Dubbel clone; it was pretty decent although could have used a bit more flavor hops; it seems a bit sweeter than the original, but there are variations in different makes of DME and LME, so that could account for the difference.

I need to buy a bottle of Westmalle again to do a direct comparison.

I also just kegged the Dead Guy Ale clone; I'll know more about this one in a few weeks.

Next up - Hacker-Pschorr O'fest.

BTW...I am doing extract plus specialty grain recipes; I'm sure the partial mash and all-grain are a little bit better.

[wild]

I've brewed the Brooklyn Chocolate Stout and the Chimay Grande Reserve from the book. Both came out lighter in color than I expected but tasted very nice, especially after 1 year.

Wild

[Magnew]

I use this book all the time. Who really cares how close they are? The beer tastes great when I drink it.

Actually, the only clone I have made from the book (or its sister Clonebrews) that I could compare was a Kirin Clone. It was close, but sweeter, not as crisp as I expect Kirin to be. That could also have been my temperature difficulties with the partial mash. What the hell...It tastes great.