Rahr iron thistle

Looking for AG recipe for iron thistle.

You live on Fort Worth?

no, i live in ohio but my cousin told me about how good this beer was. i wanted to make it but cant find the recipe anywhere. i tried emailing rahr a couple times to see if they can give any part of the recipe but i get no reply.

http://www.rahrbrewing.com/our-beers/se ... istle.html

Looks like a Strong Scotch/Wee Heavy. They give you the malts used, just look at a Strong Scotch recipe and go from there. NB shows theirs.

i put together my recipe for this. any help would be greatly appreciated. this would be my first time trying to come up with my own. i usually find a recipe online that’s already been done.

the rahr website ingredient list: Alcohol By Volume: 8.0%
International Bitterness Units: 25
Color: Dark Brown
Hops: Warrior
Malts: 2 Row, Vienna, Crystal, Chocolate, Carafa Special II

here is my recipe:

15.5lbs 2-row
2.5lbs vienna malt
1.0lbs caramel crystal malt
.375lbs briess chocolate
.125lbs carafa II

1oz warrior hops (25mins)

mash in(1.25/lbs ): add 24qt@166f rest60min@154

batch sparge: add 12.5qt@196f rest 10min@168f

yeast: scottish ale wyeast1728

ibrewmaster stats: og:1.087
fg:1.025
efficiency: 70%
color 23.3srm
boil: 60mins
batch size: 5gallon

Looks pretty good, I’d be tempted to up the crystal malt to at least 10% of the grist, maybe even 15%. Alternatively you could boil down some wort to caramelize it, thats probably not how Rahr does it though. Half pound of chocolate and carafa is quite a bit but the beer looks pretty dark so that ought to work. Why are you hopping at 25min? Warrior is pretty high alpha s I recall, but I wouldn’t think this beer would have much of a hop presence. haven’t had it though so I defer to your decision, I think you’ll get some hop flavor from that addition. Could be really good that way.

the reason for the hopping at 25min was trying to get the ibu’s to 25. if you have a better suggestion please let me know. this is the first time i’m creating a recipe and more help the better.

do you think i should up the crystal and decrease the chocolate and carafa?

I got a reply from the brewer at rahr.

Your recipe looks pretty good, except you might want to up the caramel malt to about 2.5 lbs. What lovibond caramel are you using? We use 30-40. Also, we boil for 90 mi for extra kettle caramelization and we use Cal Ale yeast (Wlp001 or Wyeast 1056). Good Luck and let me know how it works out!

I’m going to brew this Monday.