Breweries and Their Recipes

There are some others, look at the Sierra Nevada site.

Once you know that an ingedient list is not the brewery recipe, you are ahead of the game.

 

There's a stout I have, that lists everything from brew date, to bottle date, the malts, the hops, the IBU's, the ABV, and the OG...everything. It's a small brewery, but they are a great one. They made this beer once as far as I know and it's only been bottled once.

I thought, hey, I love this beer, I can make it.. But that list means jack shit. I don't know their mash temp, I don't know the water profile, I don't know the exact yeast strain, I don't have half of what I need to try to replicate it.

 

Equipment and process. Key stuff in a recipe.

 

Exactly.. I mean, you could "assume" that they don't use anything super special, and "assume" they mash at such and such a temp based on your perception of the body, and the flavor, and whatnot.. and COULD get lucky by going along with a style guideline..

 

Stone has pretty detailed recipes for most of their Vertical Epic series..
http://www.stonebrew.com/epic/index.php.htm

 

Troegs and Southern Tier post a lot of info on their websites too - off the top of my head

 

Whether in doubt, or simply lacking in detail, why not shoot the brewer an email? I've never encountered a professional brewmaster who was not willing to share his recipes and techniques. Granted, those whom i've asked have been small operations - brewpubs and maybe 15 bbl micros, But, while I'm not saying they'll all do it, they tend to be a sharing bunch. Keep in mind that many (most?) professional brewers started out as home brewers, so they have a soft spot in their hearts for us.

 

New Belgium gives ingredients on their website, and Rogue puts it on the bottle.

 

Goose Island lists grains and hops, but no quantities (similar to most).

 

Not to mention water chemistry.

 

I'm reminded about when Dave Line set about writing his book "Brewing beers like those you buy" and visited brewery after brewery, getting the same answer every time-that you are welcome to the recipe but it won't do you any good.Instead it was necessary to formulate entirely different recipes to match the original beers.When Young's brewery relocated it took them months to replicate the beers even though it was the same brewers with access to the same ingredients and processes. Just because of different scale and equipment by all accounts. But we all know from cooking that two people making the same things with the same recipe don't get the same results!

 

Shmaltz releases the full brewing recipe/process for their Jewbelation beers http://www.shmaltzbrewing.com/HEBREW/J16/J16_Brewsheet.xls
However, you'd need to do a bit of scaling down, as chances are you don't have room to mash 9,589 lbs of malt.

 

One way to find out...
Can I Mash It?

 

Lots of breweries are generous with their recipes if you ask, or publish them in Zymurgy or BYO, but in my opinion, Avery takes the cake. On their website they have recipes for 14 beers, scaled to 5 gallon homebrew batches:

http://averybrewing.com/brewery/recipes-for-homebrewers/

 

Good thing I just rigged up the plumbing to connect 215 Coleman Extreme Coolers Firestone Barrel Style

 

That is pretty sweet. I'll have to remember to pick up a couple of their brews next time I'm bottle shopping and consider making one or two. I'll probably give the Reverend and the Czar a whirl in time.

 

http://bluepantsbrew.com/brews/knickerbocker.html

We have some updating to do on our website, but we post ingredients that we use and we also have these same lists on sheets in our taproom.

 

Plus, recipes for some of their regulars:
http://www.stonebrew.com/news/081201/

Northern Brewer "pro series" has the recipes online:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/recipe-kits/pro-series