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Old Chub Clone Recipe

In a previous post, I paired the scotch ale I brewed back in November with two other scotch ales, Old Chub and Scottie Karate. Now that my batch has been bottled and had time to condition, it’s time to pair it off against Old Chub again to see what’s up.

Notes from the tasting (Old Chub on left, Alba Dog on right in these pictures):

  • Alba Dog definitely has more body than Old Chub, more carmel notes coming through
  • Old Chub is thinner, drier, actually more drinkable than Alba Dog though they’re both roughly 8% ABV. Alba Dog’s OG was 1.o84, meaning that Old Chub’s must be less than that yet almost certainly is fermented out further than the hefty 1.027 FG I was left with for Alba Dog (due I believe mainly to a high mash temp of 158*)
  • The hop profile of Old Chub comes across much clearer than Alba Dog’s, especially as the samples begin to warm up towards room temperature. I think this has to do with the fact that I took the extra step of boiling a few gallons of the first runnings down in my 5 gallon brew pot before adding to the brew kettle. That really lent a carmel flavor to the batch that seems to overpower most everything else.

When formulating my scotch ale recipe, I knew I wanted to try and create something similar to Old Chub but couldn’t find a clone recipe online. Sure enough, now that my beer is ready to drink, the current issue of Brew Your Own (March-April 2012) contains an Old Chub clone recipe. I’ve included this below beside the recipe I ended up doing:

Ingredients: Old Chub Alba Dog
Base malt 13 lbs. 10 oz. north american 2-row 15 lbs. golden promise 2-row
Specialty malts 18 oz. english dark crystal malt 3 lbs. munich 8L
  12 oz. munich malt 10L 1 lb. honey malt
  3.5 oz. english chocolate malt 4 oz. chocolate malt
  6 oz. special B 2.5 oz. de-bittered black
  4.5 oz. weyerman smoked malt 9.5 oz. brown sugar
Hops 0.8 oz. (9.6 AAU) Nugget at 60 min. 1 oz. (6.3% AAU) kent goldings (UK) at 45 min.
  1 oz. (6.3% AAU) kent goldings (UK) at 35 min.
Mash Single infusion at 155* Single infusion at 158*
Boil time 90 min. 90 min.
Yeast WLP001 California Ale, 3.5 L starter WLP028 Edinburg Scottish Ale, 1.5 L starter
Ferment temp 69* (but no higher!) 61*

Most interesting about the clone recipe is the low amount of hops used. I think when I try doing a scotch ale again I will definitely mash at a lower temp to help ferment it out further. The clone recipe has a target OG of 1.078 and an FG of 1.020 whereas Alba Dog had an OG of 1.084 and an FG of 1.027.

3 Responses

  1. mike

    I think its all about the starter. Have you tried it again yet?

    June 4, 2012 at 10:14 pm

    • Hey Mike – no I haven’t re-brewed it. If I were to do it again, I’d probably do two vials in a 1700 ml 1.040 starter 36 hrs. prior to pitch instead of using just one vial. I’ve been doing that a lot lately and like the results. What’s an extra $6.00 anyway? On the plus side, this beer has attenuated down to 1.025 now and though it is still probably the sweetest beer I’ve made (save for one messed up DIPA, my 3rd batch ever), it still tastes pretty close to style. I’d probably ease up on boiling a portion of the wort though, as I think that got it a little too thick and maybe a little too carmelly if that’s possible… The yeast did their job with what I gave them though. I’ve set aside at least a third of this batch to age for another year or two to see what happens in time. Have you brewed a scotch ale?

      June 4, 2012 at 11:08 pm

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