Whale Clone Kits

Totally agree with the choir here. Having the same recipe and ingredients will probably put you in the ballpark of the cloned beer. If you're a total beginner, be ready to be let down if you are trying to end up brewing an exact replica of an excellent commercial beer. Rather, I'd focus on making beers you enjoy, and gradually and incrementally increasing your skill set. More rewarding, in my opinion.

 

Fair enough, take my opinion with a grain of salt as I've never brewed a clone kit. You may end up with a great beer. I would just be prepared for it to taste significantly different than the commercial version.

 

I've never made a clone beer or used a kit. Every Citra forward beer I've made tastes better than Zombie Dust, so cloning it would be settling for less.

 

Not sure what it is about 3F, but their beers fall off remarkably quickly. Drinking Zombie Dust, Gumball Head, Space Station etc. at the brewery was a transcended experience. So good, fresh, hoppy, juicy, bright etc. everything that they aren't once they've been in the bottle for just a couple weeks. I can't tell you how many bad bottles of Dreadnaught I endured wondering what the excitement was about before I had one that a friend had picked up at the brewery less than a week prior.

 

Peter, I do not brew clone kits but instead prefer to formulate my own recipes. You should consider brewing clone kits if that is your interest but I suspect you will prefer the beers you homebrew tailored to your own tastes. The beauty of homebrewing is that we can make beer the way we like vs. having to drink beers brewed to suit to tastes of others.

Cheers!

Jack

Edit: a book you should consider buying: Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels.

 

They recently installed a presumably better bottling line. Like maybe a month ago? Their bottled beer should hold up a lot better than it did before. Before the upgrade, anything bottled, hoppy and older than 2-3 weeks was stale and not really worth drinking.

 

There are a lot of very good recipes in the book Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainascheff and John Palmer. I would strongly recommend that book to you.

Cheers!

 

There you go, great beer in a line that introduces O2 gives you subpar beer in a few weeks.