Arrogant Bastard Clone. . . Sort of

Ok guys, I want to brew an arrogant bastard-type beer or India Red Ale, if you will for the holidays. It doesn’t have to be an exact replica, just want it to be somewhat similar, or in the same style. I have done a little research and found/came-up with a couple recipes.



Please take a look and let me know what you would change for each of them and which one you think would be best. Also, I am an extract brewer (haven’t made the jump to AG) and all of the recipes will be dry-hopped after primary fermentation for 7-14 days. Here they are:

Recipe 1

Batch Size: 5 gal

OG: 1.080

FG: 1.018

9lbs Briess Golden Light DME (90%) - 4lbs early, 5lbs late addition

1.5 lb Special B (10%)

1 oz Chinook (60)

1 oz Chinook (30)

1 oz Chinook (15)

1 oz Chinook (flameout)

2 units Irish Ale yeastYeast

1 Whirfloc tablet



Recipe 2

Batch Size: 5 gal

OG: 1.080

FG: 1.020

3.00 lb Amber D.M.E.

0.50 lb Belgian Special "B"

0.50 lb Belgian aromatic malt

0.50 lb Belgian biscuit

0.50 lb CaraMunich

5.00 lb Light D.M.E.

0.30 lb Pale Chocolate

1.00 oz Chinook(75 minutes)

1.50 oz Chinook(45 minutes)

1.00 oz Chinook(20 Minutes)

1.00 oz Chinook(flameout)

2 units Irish Ale Yeast

1 Whirfloc tablet



Probably going to dry-hop with Simcoe, as I have quite a bit leftover from a previous brew. Let me know what you guys think or what you would change.



Cheers!

By the way, Stone brewing has the recipe for Arrogant Bastard on their website. At least they used to.

I’d never use 1.5lbs of Special B in a beer, much less a hoppy one. Also, the best way to brew with extract is to use the palest extract you can and then use Specialty malts to do the rest. It’s the most fermentable and gives you the most control, imo.

I only used 0.5 lbs of Special B and I had brewed it before without any issues, but I appreciate the input, I will take it into consideration.

Originally posted by Steve_0
I only used 0.5 lbs of Special B and I had brewed it before without any issues, but I appreciate the input, I will take it into consideration.

Originally posted by Cobra
By the way, Stone brewing has the recipe for Arrogant Bastard on their website. At least they used to.

Arrogant Bastard is a recipe Stone won’t reveal. They are quite generous with some of their other recipes.

Lots of chinook. And if you want to do an Oaked Arrogant Bastard clone, they use light toasted American oak chips. But for the recipe, when I was at Stone last year, they told us Arrogant Bastard only had 2 types of grains in it. And I saw lots of Muntons bags everywhere, but I didn’t get the chance to see which Crystal malt they had on hand.

So which recipe would everyone here use? And does everyone think 1.5lbs of Special B, as listed in the first recipe, is too much?

1.5 pounds of special B is waaaaay too much special B. 8oz provides a relatively strong raisin flavor. I could not imagine 3x that amount. I’m not sure they use special B at all. It’s been a long time since I had AB, but I don’t recall it tasting like raisins. Does it?

Probably just use some Crystal 80.