I brewed a clone recipe and I tasted it side by side with a SNPA and noticed a lager like flavor in the SNPA like I get from a great lakes dortmunder. A crisp flavor that I’m not sure where it comes from. Can anyone tell me what I’m tasting? Is it a yeast flavor or malt flavor I’m tasting?
Could it be water? Water treatments could introduce a bit of snappy crispnesss. Otherwise, I’m going to point to fermentation temp. The Chico strain (us05) has never been too clean for me. I suspect SN knows better than I how to get a clean fermentation out of it.
I recently did an extract clone of SNIPA. It turned out great and tasted so much like Sierra Nevada I went out and bought a 6-pack so I could taste it side-by-side.
Aromas were identical. The head on the SN was slightly taller and whiter than the head on my homebrew. However, the head on the SN dissipated fairly quickly whereas my home brew kept that nice little ring of head all the way to the bottom of the glass.
Taste was just slightly different with my homebrew being slightly more robust than the SN. You really had to taste back and forth to discern that, but it was slightly more robust.
This was the recipe out of the “Clone” book and the only thing I did differently was use 6.6-lbs of LME instead of 3.2 DME and 3.3 LME because my local shop had run out of DME. Not real sure 1/10th of a pound would make a difference though.
As far as water goes, I live in the foothills East of Seattle and am on well water. I don’t have a breakdown of the water itself, but it tastes really good and I’ve made 4 different brews with it since moving here. All turned out excellent (2 Dry Irish Stouts, one Dusseldörf Altbier, and this IPA)
I found this brew carbonated really quickly - was ready in 8-days instead of 2-weeks in the bottle and it turned out really clear. If I leave about 1/2" of beer in the bottle the glass will be sparkling clear like a lager. If I just leave the noticeable pieces in the bottle (1/8" to 1/4" left in bottle) clarity suffers slightly but no more than other ales and taste is spot on. So I usually opt for the 1/8 to 1/4" left in the bottle.
I am convinced that one of the reasons they’ve all turned out so well was because of the well water I have here.
Changing over to all-grain brewing now and will give the all-grain clone a try in a month or two.
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