Saint Rogue Red is made with 2 row Harrington, Klages and Munich malts, along with Hugh Baird 30-37, 13-17 Carastan, and Crystal 70-80 malts (44.4% speciality grains .39 lbs grain per bottle); Chinook and Centennial hops. Saint Rogue Red is available in a 22-ounce bottle and on draft. Saint Rogue Red Dry Hopped-a draft only variation with raw Centennial hops added to the keg, giving the beer an increased hop finish and intense hop aroma.

13 degrees Plato, IBU 44, Apparent Attenuation 73.1, Lovibond 26.75

Brewer's Notes

Overview: I have made four attempts at cloning this beer. The first three were good but were not a clone. The forth is to be bottled on 12/18/98. My note keeping skills were not very good when the first two batches were done. I was using Brewer's Workshop to make recipies and to keep track of things. I am pretty sure the numbers are good on volumes and S.G. readings but some numbers in the second attempt don't match up exactly for some reason. Like the pre-boil volume of 7.4 gallons at 1.045 doesn't match up with 5.25 gallons at 1.056 at the end. I am very anal about my notes now and that includes clones 3 and 4. I am considering putting up my brewing log sheets on a seperate page. We'll see.

(12/21/98) The forth was bottled on 12/20/98. This batch I made a little over five and a half gallons and split into two different carboys and used two different yeasts. I naturally used Pacman in one and used Brewer's Resource (aka BrewTek) CL-50 California Pub strain in the second. BrewTek's CaliPub is supposedly Pacman. Neither half turned out as malty as I would like to have it but the hops were pretty good in this batch. The Pacman half was a little bland and the CaliPub had a definite fruitiness to it. We'll have to see how it turns out in a couple of weeks with carbonation. I'm hoping my tastebuds were just "off" last night and it turns out better after bottle conditioning.

(12-30-98) I popped a bottle of batch no.4, the pacman half, last night to see how it is coming along. It was pretty well carbonated, to my surprise, and produced a nice thick head. The maltiness is still lacking but it had a complex hop flavor to it that the first three don't have. I think the bitterness needs upped a little and a little dryhopping wouldn't hurt either. I am going to try the CaliPub half tonight and will do a side by side tasting of all four with a bottle of St. Rogue this weekend.

(12-31-98) I tasted a bottle of the CaliPub half last night and it was pretty good. It had more of a maltiness to it than the Pacman half. I was getting a hint of the caramel, malt flavor that I didn't get in the Pacman half. It also had a slight fruity, citrus flavor to it. Very nice complex hopflavor to it. I also remembered last night why the bitterness is not as pronounced as it should be. I used hop bags on this batch. Duh. This batch turned out very well balanced in flavor. This one is a damn good drinking beer it's just not Rogue. I am becoming a little suspect of how good the Pacman yeast is that I used on this batch. I think I am going to try to culture it again and then put it on slants.

Recommendations: From looking at all four recipies I think my next attempt will use the hops from either batch 2 or 4 with maybe a little bit of dryhopping with both Chinook and Centennial. With the malts I think the first recipe had the crystal malts in the right order as far as percentage. I think that the 4th recipe would be better if amounts of the medium crystal and the heavy crystal were switched. I think that it is the medium Carastan that is providing the carmel, malt flavor that St.Rogue has. Also, the mash temperature needs to me dropped to about 152 to get better attenuation with the high percentage of crystal malts.

Overall: All four had a nice, thick, creamy head when poured. The 2nd batch lost it's head the quickest with the 3rd batch maintaining a thick head throughout the tasting. The 1st and 4th held their heads nicely. All were very clear with no signs of chill haze. The 1st batch had the best color which was a deep, dark red color.

Red 1: Little to no hop aroma or flavor but had a nice malty aroma. By far the maltiest of the 4. Caramel, malt flavor dominates. Good, creamy mouthfeel. VERY drinkable beer if you like malty ales.

Red 2: Slight hop aroma and flavor. No malt aroma like in Red 1. Still has malty, caramel flavor to it but not as much as Red 1. More hop flavor and bitterness to this one. Has creamy mouthfeel like the first. This one is a more well balanced than the others. It is also a very drinkable beer.

Red 3: Seems thinner in body. Even more hop flavor and aroma. No caramel, malt flavor as in the first two. This one held its head the longest. It is a good beer but when put up against the first two it really doesn't stand out.

Red 4: (Pacman) More hop aroma and flavor than Red 3. Slight citrus flavor to it. Very thin body and not much maltiness at all. The more I drank this after the others the more I disliked this one. I think the Pacman yeast I used on this batch was bad. (CaliPub) Big citrus aroma and flavor. Thin body and not much malt flavor. Not sure about this being Pacman or not. This forth batch was by far the worst. The hops weren't too bad in this one there was just no maltiness to balance them out.

Let me know what you think. Email me with any questions, comments, or suggestions.