Whale Clone Kits

This is the only clone kit that I've seen sold out. But that is because they use barrel chunks from actual Russian River barrels in the kit. http://www.morebeer.com/products/kit-allgrain-russian-rivers-consecration.html

Otherwise, a kit is just a compilation of ingredients, there's really nothing to be sold out of if the brew shop has a good inventory.

That being said, many people don't even buy the kits. I for one brew any clone I want, but don't buy the "kit." Typically the ingredients are available for the same or lower price than the kit, especially if you buy in bulk. A kit is just pre-measures ingredients. There are NO shortage of clone recipes across the web, and a good handful are even released by the original brewer for the home brewers.

as to how they turn out, depends on who is brewing it, and how they do so. Ranges from dead on, to not even close....

 

To answer the more general question, just having an accurate recipe doesn't not as Whale make. You really have to know your system, and have a great process to produce a beer as good as the original brewery. Taking a great recipe and producing great beer requires understanding water chemistry, ingredient selection (are the Citra in Zombie Dirt the same quality that 3 Floyds selects for Zombie Dust?), pH adjustment, fermentation control, packaging process, etc.

Heck, you even see the problems that the breweries have when they move to a new system/location. Alpine for example brewing their beers at Green Flash is taking some time to get them as good as they were before. I've also seen it going the other way, taking my homebrew recipes and scaling up for commercial production can be just as tricky as scaling down.

I like brewing the occasional clone or "inspired by" type beer, but I've never brewed one I thought was indistinguishable from the original!

 

Recreating an exact clone of the 2 beers that you've listed above would be pretty tough to do.. Not saying it can't be done, but to achieve that level of hop freshness that Zombie Dust and any of the russian river IPAs have, you'll need to find a method for eliminating virtually any amount of oxygen from coming into contact with your beer. One way of doing this is transferring your beer from primary to keg via CO2.

Other than that, I'd do my research online to try and find more information on what clone you're wanting to do, and really nail down the grain bill, hops and especially yeast that the brewery uses.

If I were to make a Zombie Dust clone for example, I don't think I'd ever call it one in the end. Rather, I'd just refer to it as a hoppy pale ale, because it probably won't taste like Zombie Dust.

 

Minimizing oxygen is important, but with how quickly the 3 Floyds beers fall off, I'm not sure pressurized transfers are a minimal requirement. Honestly, if you are kegging and purging you might be better off than a commercial bottling process. I can only speak for myself, but at a month in the bottle I didn't care of the Gumball Head a friend brought back.

Maybe not exactly, but a highly-single-hopped beer is probably one of the easier style to get pretty close. It smells and tastes like Citra, which will cover up minor issues/deviations in the rest of the process/recipe. I think it is much more difficult to clone yeast-driven beers, especially without good intel on what the brewery is doing!

 

The other part to that answer is that many homebrewers enjoy the creativity of brewing something that they can't buy. I'm more likely to take techniques from a particular brewery and use them on my own recipes. For example, for hoppy beers I'm more interested in the philosophy behind hop timing/amounts, water treatment, fermentation than I am the specific hop amounts.

There is also a big difference between what the best rated beers here are, and the sorts of beers I want to drink five gallons of. I tend to brew flavor-packed 4-6% ABV beers rather than the slew of 10%+ beers that tend to dominate the ratings.

 

Ahh, sure is. I hadn't bothered to look at NB before my reply. Take a look under 'additional info' and they have the instructions, which, in turn, have the full recipe:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/allgrain/AG-PlinianProgeny.pdf

Not sure why they list it as out of stock, besides maybe just none more boxed up and in that case, probably would have inventory available soon.. It looks like they have all the ingredients in the recipe though.

To echo what the others said, I don't brew a clone to have a clone.. I brew a clone to end up with a good beer - but I don't seek to make it an exact replica of the original..

 

From time to time kits are unavailable and I suspect it reflects hop availability, or maybe yeast availability in the case of heady clones. But most experienced home brewers don't use kits, and big ipas are not the easiest beers for beginners to pull off.

 

Does 3Floyds have a top shelf bottling line? I often think that is where Breweries get O2 and end with a short shelf life.

Stan Heironimus is now talking a little about flavor masking, where the hop flavors and aromas cover up other things that would be a defect. IPAs are relatively easy to brew when you have the basics down.

I agree with the yeast driven beers being harder. SN talked at the 2011 NHC about the Ovila beers, and how they worked to get the fermentation right when working with new to them Belgian yeast.

For clones you can get close, but you may not have their exact ingredients (hops vary by field in the same farm). Equipment and process are key, and we don't have the same for either item. New Brewers should just try and make the best beer they can.

 

Yes, that. Pitch rates. Mashing at correct pH. Water chemistry, and so on.

 

Also, consistency of all of the above!

 

I remember when Zombie Dirt came out (and just confirmed again at today's price) that the price was more expensive than buying the same individual ingredients at NB, even if the individual ingredient pricing included buying several 1oz. bags of citra. If you price the same ingredients with 1 8oz. package of hops instead of 8 1oz. then the price of the all grain kit is $13 more than the price of just buying the ingredients and following their recipe. And for that one in particular, it's not like the recipe is very original considering 1) it's a clone, and 2) similar clone recipes have been readily available online for a few years. The whole thing just felt like they are trying to capitilize on the hype and I don't think they do the same with their other clone recipe kits, which are priced much more inline with the sum of the ingredients.

 

To that list I would add yeast health and pitch rate, yeast nutrients, and wort oxygenation. Also, mash pH and water profile if doing all grain.

 

For an IPA I'd add kegging as one of the most important factors. It is tough to brew a great hoppy beer when you bottle condition. Kegging allows you to purge with CO2 (to minimize oxidation), force carbonate (drink it fresher, keep it colder), keg hopping is a big help too!

 

Look into dry hopping during the tail of active fermentation. It reduces the risks of oxidation associated to racking to secondary and dry hopping, and the yeast will use any oxygen you do introduce with the hops. I actually prefer the character anyway, although you may want to increase the dry hop size to compensate for the aromatics lost to CO2 scrubbing.

 

Yes. The traditional advice for dry hopping was to wait until fermentation is totally complete and most of the yeast has dropped out before adding the hops. As yeast ferment they release CO2 that escapes the beer, taking aromatics along with it. In addition yeast cells floating in the beer stick to the hops, reducing the effective surface area. However, if you can't flush with tank CO2, these advantages are outweighed by the risk of exposure to oxygen without yeast to absorb it and protect the beer. In addition, dry hopping during fermentation encourages a variety of chemical changes that I think produce a better aroma (softer, less green, more interesting).