Thoughts on beer recipes on the label

recipes are good but the real secret is the yeast.

 

I think some breweries release their recipes for either credibility or because they are confident enough to do so. Homebrewers might try to clone some recipes but it is not like it is going to effect their sales. It is almost like a famous chef giving out a recipe it is probably not going to taste as good if you make it at home. Also as mentioned above some breweries cultivate their own yeast strains which would be hard to duplicate.

 

Todd Mott, former head of Portsmouth, breaks down how to make a KtG clone, which could be considered the Dark Lord of the Northeast.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/official-kate-great-russian-imperial-stout-clone-217674/

Suffice to say, the yeast plays an enormous part in maintaining consistency, but I imagine breweries aren't going to be giving the farm out to people in terms of recipes, partially to maintain their leverage for money and part for pride. That said, Deschutes does it too, but they make you work for it.

http://www.deschutesbrewery.com/recipe/abyss-clone

 

Water chemistry, brewery efficiencies, and various temperatures also are big factors. I love seeing breweries giving out recipes. To me it shows they understand the home brewing community (a community most owners were on time a part of).

 

Well, I have to assume that just because you know the ingredients, a lot of beer flavors come from amounts of ingredients, temperatures, environment, storage, etc.. You could use the same raw materials and get a totally different flavor.

 

I agree. Equipement and procedures will make a huge difference in the final product.

Well know brewers say you can make a beer "like" theirs, but not exactly since you don't have their equipement and procedures.

 

Yeast is the most important ingredient. How they use it, and at what temperature would help, but we don't have huge conicals.

 

Yeast depends on the style. When making pale ales and IPAs, White Labs California ale yeast and Wyeast American Ale will often make a finished product that mimics those of popular craft breweries. Where the yeast becomes really important for the unique flavours that Belgians, sours and imperial stouts that use fruity Belgian yeast strains have.

Check out this yeast conversion chart:

http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm

 

The dregs contain the proprietary yeast for the world to cultivate. No hiding the yeast since it's delivered in the final product. So no, it would be very easy to duplicate their strains.

See this example: http://eurekabrewing.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/isolating-the-bugs-from-cantillon-kriek/

 

That is true for some beers. Others are filtered and then a bottling strain is added.

 

However many prominent brewers of American IPAs do use an English Ale strain. Sure Belgian strains provide a bigger impact on the flavor but I do not think we should minimize the impact yeast has on Pales and IPAs

 

You're assuming that each beer has a recipe. Commercial breweries tinker with recipes to cope with variations in ingredients. The alpha acid conrnet of hops isn't constant from year to year or even batch to batch. Which means if you want to keep the IBU level the same, you need to change the quantities used.

 

Actually the only way to culture a yeast strain from a bottle is if its bottle conditioned. The yeast is still alive and going that way. Going to culture a Bell's Two Hearted for an IPA, Bells bottle conditions most if not all their beers.

 

What would be the purpose of putting a beer's recipe (or a list of ingredients) on the label, or releasing it on the brewery's website, etc? Most people wouldn't have a clue what it means, and for a homebrewer to try to replicate the beer using a 1,000 gal. recipe (or whatever huge amount) and scaling it down to a 5-15 gallon batch would create enough variants so that the final beer would not likely be very close to the original.

However, the brewery's 1,000 gallon recipe would be helpful to competing breweries, but, c'mon, do breweries try to steal recipes from other breweries? Okay, yeah, maybe they would like to copy a successful (unique) beer's recipe if given the chance, and enjoy some similar success with their own 'copycat' version, thus a reason not to release this info, especially if the breweries compete in the same geographical market.

 

Since their is only a certain amount of space on the label, it might not be the best place for them to put a recipe. I do like it when they put hop varieies on the label. This way if I stumble on a new IPA or pale ale at the store I can kind of know what to expect if I buy it.

 

I'd like all beers to list their hops. Wild yeast strains and bacteria would be nice. Spices and fruits too.

Don't really care about the full recipe.

 

Go to your lowest and rated IPAs and Pale Ales, find their recipes online, and then look at the hops that are used. There are plenty of websites out there that list hop taste and aroma profiles. Then when you see descriptors on here of a beer you want to try such as orange (Amarillo), evergreen/tobacco/grapefruit (Simcoe), lemon/grassy (Cascade), or grapefruit/floral (Centennial) then you will have an idea what to expect.

That was how I learned to avoid beers that heavily use CTZ or Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus hops because I pick up a garlic, onion and herbal flavor off of many beers that use them.

 

Telling you the recipe isn't giving that much away.Even the fact of brewing on a smaller scale will make certain a different result-commercial brewers often have immense difficulty in flavour matching when upgrading their brewing plant or increasing batch sizes.It took Young's months to get things right after a simple brewery move of a few dozen miles.Throw in different yeast strains,ingredients sourced from different suppliers and different temperature controls and the rsult won't be the same as what you buy.