White Rabbit Dark Ale clone

I designed this recipe on friday night and brewed saturday morning. Australians my know the White Rabbit dark ale. Ive pieced together the recipe from a few other places and while its not exact it should be interesting attempt at a clone.

Ive guessed that its similar to a Northern English Brown Ale, but i may be way off here. Different websites call it everything from a ale to a porter and their own website doesn't call it anything other than a dark ale, so Im not exactly sure the style they're going for, if any.

I used the wyeast ringwood ale as my local HBS had missed a shipment of yeast and was pretty low on english yeast options, I was originally going to try a london Ale yeast.

I pitched the yeast on Monday and its been a pretty slow start, but its up and running now. I had a quick taste today and there is lots of butterscotch going on. This will definitely need a diactyl rest.

When I hit the no chill button on brewmate the IBU jumps from 26.8 to 41, so I am thinking the real IBU's are somewhere in the middle.

Can someone suggest a Northern English brown ale that I might be able to get in Australia so I can do a taste comparrison to see where my clone sits (we've got some good specialty bottleshops near me). This is probably all a bit late considering ive already brewed this thing, but sometimes you've just gotta jump in feet first and work out the details later

Any other comments are more than welcome

White Rabbit dark Ale (Northern English Brown Ale)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.048 (°P): 11.9
Final Gravity (FG): 1.012 (°P): 3.1
Alcohol (ABV): 4.72 %
Colour (SRM): 19.4 (EBC): 38.2
Bitterness (IBU): 26.8 (Average)

73.68% Pale Ale Malt
10.53% Munich I
7.37% Caramunich II
3.16% Crystal 120
3.16% Wheat Malt
2.11% Carafa II malt

0.5 g/L Cascade (7.8% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 g/L Northern Brewer (9.6% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 g/L Cascade (7.8% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 g/L Northern Brewer (9.6% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 g/L Cascade (7.8% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 g/L Northern Brewer (9.6% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil)


Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 18°C with Wyeast 1187 - Ringwood Ale

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Nice post Stu ,

On the recipe side of things, maybe just wait until it's finished and then compare the White Rabbit in a triangle taste with your beer? I will help . If you want to clone the White Rabbit, that's the only option I can see.

If you want to try and define what style the Rabbit is then you definitely need lots of recommendations and will have to drink them all .

You asked for, 'any other comments'. You idiot ...

Ignore the IBU estimates in BrewMate. You and I both no-chilled and chilled a 'Hop Hog' and had several other brewers taste it. What was the difference? Nothing! What's important in hop IBU's is firstly, when you start chilling and then a billion other factors follow. What's important in a recipe is to convey the chilling method you used and when you 'employed' it. (eg No-chilled/chilled at flame out/chilled after allowing to settle for 30 mins and about a billion other variations).

The other problem in the recipe report is the hop thing where it says 0.5 g/L. I wrote something on this the other day here - must have been a recipe report from the same program? A litre of what?

Pre-boil Volume?
Post-boil Volume?
Volume into Fermentor?

Anyway, make a note of what 'litreage' you worked on and your chilling method so as you (and the rest of us) can manipulate/refine the next batch as best as we can .

It's totally silly that existing software doesn't produce unambiguous recipe reports*. But, unfortunately that is the reality. I can't think of any brewing software that produces a clear recipe report.


PP

*(The BIABacus does so at least we have something to look forward to.)

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PistolPatch wrote:On the recipe side of things, maybe just wait until it's finished and then compare the White Rabbit in a triangle taste with your beer? I will help . If you want to clone the White Rabbit, that's the only option I can see.

I told you to go out and buy a bottle of this beer so you could advise me on the style...and what have you done??? Nada Pick up your game PP, there's drinking to be done!

They did have this on tap at the Leederville last time i was there, and it was right tasty, Ive never tried it out of the bottle.

PistolPatch wrote:Nice post Stu ,

The other problem in the recipe report is the hop thing where it says 0.5 g/L. I wrote something on this the other day here - must have been a recipe report from the same program? A litre of what?

Pre-boil Volume?
Post-boil Volume?
Volume into Fermentor?

The hop schedule was 20g of cascade & 20g of Northern brewer for each addition and I was making a 42L into the fermenter, so as you say its a bit ambiguous (or at least needs an extra digit to make it accurate)

When i print the brewday report out it shows grams, so I am not sure why it exports as g/L

Its tasting pretty good, expect the diactyl, but a lot of that should clean up ok.
Some beer testing is definitely due PP

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Aces high wrote:I told you to go out and buy a bottle of this beer so you could advise me on the style...and what have you done??? Nada Pick up your game PP, there's drinking to be done!

The first mistake you made was probably asking me to do this when I was testing out BobBrew's beer diet (drunk). The second mistake was you must have assumed that I am good at recipe design. The only thing I am good at is stealing other people's recipes and working out how to copy them .

Btw, yours was the second post I've seen recently with the grams per litre thing. Maybe BrewMate has changed their recipe report? (THanks for posting the clarifications).

Next drink is 10th November for the Royal Beer Show tasting. Mind you, I have a job up your way that I might get back to before then. Make sure your fridge is full!

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Aces high wrote:...do you like scotch?

I went out with a Scottich nurse once and I really liked her . The only problem was that her Scottish accent was so heavy I really couldn't understand a word she said. Being the shallow person I am, this posed no problem for me but possibly provided some obstacles for her .

I also have possibly not answered your question and gone off-topic .

Will buy a White Rabbit this week and see if anything jumps out at me - excuse the pun. Why do you think this brew has gone horribly wrong?

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Maybe it'll turn out alright at the end of the day? Fingers crossed . If not, I'll take the Scotch . Be interesting to taste it though - will call you if passing by.

Yep, not the coolest weather for brewing today. Go and have a beer .

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