By Greg B. So with another graduate student in my lab going to her defense, I decided to keep with my tradition and brew her a beer.  And with her love of the American IPA style of beer running rampant (I watched her buy a case of Dogfish head 60 min once!) I decided to try to make a clone of this beer.  Or at very least, a similar beer.

To start with, if you want to make a clone of a beer, you should drink a few of them.  And really reflect upon the flavors you want to come out.  Personally, I’ve had difficulty getting the bitterness to come through in my IPAs, but I think some new changes will really help this beer out.  Notably, the use of White labs California ale yeast, which has worked so well on the last IPA I made at digesting the sugars, I hope to really have almost no residual sugars in this beer, but be left with some great aromatics and some great bitter flavor, along with some slight darker roasted malts.

Grain Bill:

• 5.5lbs 2 Row
• 1.5lb Caramel Pils
• .75lb Crystal 40
• 3lb Dry Light Briess

Everything Else:

• 2 oz Simcoe hop pellets (11.8% aa bittering)
• 2 oz Challenger hop pellets (7% aa, for aromatics)
• 1oz Amarillo hops, whole leaf (8.4%aa bittering)
• 1oz Amarillo Hops, whole leaf (8.4%aa aromatics)
• White Labs California Ale Yeast (WL001) in suspension
• 1 tspn Irish Moss**

For this beer, I ran another step-infusion mash.  First in a mash with the 5.5lbs of 2-Row malt from 135-142-155F over the course of 90 minutes, with 25 minutes at 135 then 25 min at 142 then the remainder of the time at 155F.  I did the same procedure with the Caramel pils and Crystal 40, 135-142-155F, with a sparge temp at 172F for 10 minutes.  Then mixed in the rest of the dry Light Briess.  Once that was in solution, I began the hop routine and brought the wort to a boil.  First, I took the 1oz of Amarillo whole leak hops inside a grain bag and added that to the wort.  Then I added about 1/2 oz of the Simcoe hop pellets, stirred and boiled 15 minutes.  Then at every 15 minute interval, I added another 1/2 oz of simcoe pellets until everything totalled 60 minute boil.  For the last 15 minutes, I added the 2oz of Challenger hops.  I would have added the Irish moss, however there was a brief emergency here, as the water from my tap ran brown rather than clear, so I had to run to the store and get a few gallons of Deer Park water and I forgot to add the Irish Moss.  In reality, this only helps to enhance the clarity as it encourages proteins to coagulate and drop out of solution in the wort, but I think I can get around this by fermenting it in the secondary at cool temperatures.  I do have about 6-8 weeks at least, so I’m not in a huge rush to get this beer into the bottle, though I would like to get it there a solid 4 weeks before the graduation event!  And for the sticklers out there, here are the specifics of the beer.  70 IBUs, Promash says SRM of 7.7, but I think it looks more like a 17 or so…but who knows.  The wort had a starting gravity of 1.061 and a projected final gravity of 1.009, giving me about 6% abv.

**Update** This beer finished the primary with a gravity of 1.009, giving me an alcohol by volume measurement of about 7%.  The bitters really stand out on taste, and after I dry hopped it in a secondary for 10 days, I bottled the beer and man did it smell really good… with a very strong citrus component from the Amarillo hops.  I’m excited to see how this beer does, I just tried the previous IPA I bottled and it is carbonating nicely, I hope this does the same!