The Bar Towel

So...
I generally have a good beer palate. i can drink beer and put together a recipe based on what i taste.
except high IBU beer crush that ability. i'm a non-hophead. i cannot drink most IPAs because they taste like a blurred mess on my palate.
on the weekend, my wife ordered a Karma Citra. she asked if i could make something similar at home. so i had a sip and...i couldn't tell you anything about what was going on.
the bar was dark, so i'm not sure if it was blonde or more vienna/munichy in colour.
i also have a sinus infection, so damned if i know what was going on in the nose. guessing there's, um, some citra in there?
the head was thin and the finish was relatively dry. that's all I can tell you.

so...anyone in the mood to help me with a clone? Lackey, i'm looking at you.

I'm sure Lackey will post and set me straight, but I'm drinking one right now so I figured it'd be worth one flailing attempt. You're right, the colour is on the darker side of things. Here is a side-by-side with Bellwoods Monogamy Citra (Karma on the left, Monogamy on the right).



So, and I don't expect this to be right, I just took some hopping ratios I used to make an all Citra beer in January, adjusted the malt base for malts Great Lakes might have on hand (based on the old Crazy Canuck recipe), and just used my (probably faulty) intuition as to how the beer might have been made. Here's the attempt:

20 L Batch
OG 16P
Efficiency 80%
65 IBU

Malt bill
4.25 kg 2 Row
.75 kg Carafoam
.5 kg Crystal 70L

Hopping Schedule (60 minute boil)
60m 35 g Citra*
15m 30 g Citra
Flameout 50 g Citra
Dry Hop (5 days) 80 g Citra

Yeast WLP001 California Ale

* Not sure if it's 100% citra, if not (or if citra are too precious!) just bitter for 45 IBU at 60m with whatever (magnum etc).

groulxsome wrote: So, and I don't expect this to be right, I just took some hopping ratios I used to make an all Citra beer in January, adjusted the malt base for malts Great Lakes might have on hand (based on the old Crazy Canuck recipe), and just used my (probably faulty) intuition as to how the beer might have been made. Here's the attempt:

20 L Batch
OG 16P
Efficiency 80%
65 IBU

Malt bill
4.25 kg 2 Row
.75 kg Carafoam
.5 kg Crystal 70L

Hopping Schedule (60 minute boil)
60m 35 g Citra*
15m 30 g Citra
Flameout 50 g Citra
Dry Hop (5 days) 80 g Citra

Yeast WLP001 California Ale

* Not sure if it's 100% citra, if not (or if citra are too precious!) just bitter for 45 IBU at 60m with whatever (magnum etc).

a nice start.
citra's a great bittering hop, but yeah, magnum may also work. who knows - maybe centennial's used?

you might be aggresive on the carafoam. 1. %wise, i feel like it's a bit high (i'd keep it below 10% 2. this beer has little head and zero retention
C70 = who knows. i couldn't taste much of anything thanks to the hoppityhops

atomeyes wrote: citra's a great bittering hop, but yeah, magnum may also work. who knows - maybe centennial's used?

you might be aggresive on the carafoam. 1. %wise, i feel like it's a bit high (i'd keep it below 10% 2. this beer has little head and zero retention
C70 = who knows. i couldn't taste much of anything thanks to the hoppityhops

Untappd lists the beer as "single hop" so perhaps it is all citra! Great Lakes have been known to manage their beers on Untappd, so there is a small chance that it that formation is actually correct...

Those numbers for the speciality malts might be on the high side. Higher than I'd usually brew with, but I was trying to retain similar ratios to the Crazy Canuck clone but bump them up for an IPA. We could try scaling those down 15%... C-70 is what Lackey used in Crazy Canuck, so that's the crystal I used to get the colour and the pretty rich sweetness.

As for head retention, the two cans I've drank have had pretty strong head retention!