Duvel Clone Recipe

Duvel Clone Recipe

If there was ever a beer that was synonymous with a beer style then Duvel is it. As soon as you think of a Belgian golden strong ale, Duvel is the first beer you think of. Duvel has a very simple recipe using just Pilsner malt, sugar and Bohemian hops. Combined with the Duvel yeast strain and really unique and precise beer is the outcome. Duvel is one of the first beers I tried to clone and it is not easy to replicate even with the simple ingredients.
Westvleteren 12 Clone Recipe

Westvleteren 12 Clone Recipe

Westvleteren brewery is the smallest of the 6 Trappist breweries and began brewing in 1839 in the St Sixtus Abbey at Westvleteren. The brewery runs to support the monastery on a strictly non-commercial basis which means the beers produced by Westvleteren are very difficult to obtain. Wesvleteren produce 3 beers: Westvleteren Blonde at 5.8% Westvleteren 8 at 8% Westvleteren 12 at 10.8% Westvleteren 12 is a dark mahogany brown quadruple style beer that uses relatively simple ingredients and processes to create a really complex beer that has been rated best beer in the world multiple times. This may be down to both the flavour and the extreme scarcity. To say it is difficult to buy some of Westvleteren's beer would be an understatement. There is no marketing or distribution, production is small at just 5000 hectolitres a year and you have to reserve the beer in a lottery based telephone reservation system, from the brewery.
Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA Clone Recipe

Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA Clone Recipe

Sierra Nevada created this IPA with the use of a "Hop Torpedo", a device that was developed to aid dry hopping. Previously, the brewery had been using nylon sacks to dry hop their beers, securing them to the fermenter. After pulling them out after the dry hopping period, Sierra Nevada found that there where still dry spots in the pellet hops. This was of course, not very efficient and the maximum amount of flavour and aroma wasn't being extracted from the hops. The brewery fabricated a "hop torpedo" that was essentially a stainless steel tube that is packed with whole leaf hops. Fermenting beer is pumped through the torpedo and back through to the fermenting vessel. The speed, time and temperature of the circulation allows a fairly good degree of control for extracting hop flavour. Torpedo Extra IPA was Sierra Nevadas first year-round IPA and was released in 2009. Hop shortages meant the beer had to be allocated and demand has outpaced supply ever since.
Bell's Two Hearted Clone

Bell’s Two Hearted Clone Recipe

Bell's Two Hearted Ale was one of the first US clone beers I attempted. I remember seeing the threads on Home Brew Talk about brewing this beer and there were so many pages of homebrewers saying the clone was perfect. I couldn't get the beer in the UK of course so I had to see what all the fuss was about. Essentially, the recipe is a single hop IPA with Centennial used throughout the boil and as a dry hop in the fermenter. It is amazing the amount of flavour you can get out of such a simple recipe. Bell's Two Hearted has been around for a long time in craft beer standards but this recipe is still a classic.