Why aren't there are more commercial clones/ripoffs?

I don't brew beer either, but I'm pretty sure that it takes more than just a recipe to make something taste the same as something else.

 

There is so much variation in the brew process that it's difficult to do. You can get close, but it's just not quite the same. There are clone recipes for every beer imaginable in homebrewing forums. Hell, northern brewer sells clone recipes with names that let you know what they are clones of (caribou slobber, wonder what that is a clone ofhttp://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/...grain-kits/caribou-slobber-all-grain-kit.html)

I have heard that founder's centennial ipa is a clone of two hearted. it's close but not quite the same...

 

I think a lot of it is putting one's own stamp on their brews. If I was a brewmaster somewhere, I would sure want to have a beer as good as Heady Topper, or BCBS, or what have you, but I don't think that having one exactly the same would say much about my talents.
Even as a homebrewer, I've brewed beers that are clones of commercial beers. Each time, I've thought of something that would make it better, in my opinion. Those tweaked versions are what I would be making as a brewer. Even if someone said, "this is close to XXX" those differences are what makes my brewery not the other one.

 

Aren't they protected like KFC's 11 Herbs and Spicys

 

Another thing that makes cloning difficult is that many breweries use a distinct house yeast that's not commercially available.

 

Give five brewers the same recipe and you will end up with five different beers. Mash a couple degree higher, use a different yeast, treat your water slightly different and you will notice a rather significant difference in your beer. You successfully clone a beer you may have to make big change to your brewhouse or procedures, not really worth it for the sake of one beer.

Not a clone, not even single hopped.

 

brewery recipes are considered trade secrets like the coca-cola formula or the process to make rice crispies.

 

Would using a different yeast and or mashing a couple of degrees higher be considered using the same recipe?

 

It's just plain tacky business for an honorable brewery/brewer to intentionally replicate a well known beer.

 

i know, i know, founders centennial has cascade in it too...

 

I suppose that would be open to interpretation. Even if you use the same yeast and mash temp the equipment and fermentation conditions could still produce different results.

 

Economics.

Cast aside the science that says five brewers with one recipes will almost assuredly end up with five different beers, and pretend that one will always yield the exact same beer.

Why would a small brewery with a lower budget try to sell something that could be financially competitive with a billion dollar industry? Isn't the point of smaller breweries to create something unique, some different, from BMC? And don't those beers then cost more partly because of the ingredients, but also because of the scale of operations?

 

How do you know this isn't already done?

There's plenty of copycatting that goes on in brewing. Not necessarily a malignant issue either. Brewer tastes beer A, likes it, and tries to create something similar.

But you're never gonna hear a respectable brewery name their beer "Pliny Clone", so much of this stuff goes on behind closed doors.

 

I'd wager there's already some copycatting with minor variations. Not to derail the thread, but I've sometimes entertained the idea that really the entire American IPA movement is just variations on a couple of epitomyzing examples from California.

 

The more beer, the better - for a craft to make their take on a good beer that isn't distributed in their marketing region just means there's something to compare with for when the comparable beer hits the local area

 

Nobody is going to buy a clone brew from a new brewery. The older brewery will have better pricing, availability, name cachet, etc. As far as copying the successful beers from other breweries, it happens all the time. Look at the rash of bourbon stouts, cascade pale ales, dry irish stouts on nitro. Copying successful beers is a huge part of the industry.

 

Sadly the best selling beers are clones of each other. It's called Bud Light, Miller Lite and Coolers Lite.

 

actually, recipes cannot be copyrighted, one of the few things that cannot. There is nothing stopping a brewery making "Pete's Wicked Ale", they just could not call it "Pete's Wicked Ale".

"Peter's Slightly Naughty Ale" would be fine, though