Gyle #19 – Brewdog Dead Pony Club Clone

I had a plan to brew a double IPA, and I wanted to use a less attenuative yeast than US-05, so decided upon Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale due to its clean fermentation profile, high flocculation and low attenuation. I’d need a big starter though, and I’m still not great at making or using them as most of the yeasts I use are in dry form; I just find them much easier to use, cheaper and more forgiving. Rather than try to pull this off with a starter, I’d make a low gravity beer and throw the DIPA wort directly onto the yeast cake. So what beer to make? How about a Dead Pony Club clone!

Taking the recipe from Brewdog’s DIY Dog, I started adding the ingredients to Beersmith. The numbers weren’t adding up though, so rather than brew to the recipe I chose to brew to the OG/FG. Changes I made to the recipe were:

It was close enough to still call it a clone, or at least an homage. Swapping the yeast out certainly made it easier to hit FG of 1.011. Dry hop was done in secondary so that I could use the primary for the DIPA wort.

Recipe

SG: 1.040
IBU: 35
SRM: 10
FG: 1.011
ABV: 3.8%
Batch size: 19.5L

3kg Pilsner Malt
500g Caramalt
200g Special B

7g Citra 13%AA @ FWH 60 mins
7g Simcoe 13.2%AA @ FWH 60 mins
7g Citra 13%AA @ 15 mins
7g Simcoe 13.2%AA @ 15 mins

60g Mosaic dry hop 4 days
75g Citra dry hop 4 days
35g Simcoe dry hop 4 days

Mash @ 66C for 60 mins

Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale

At 8g/L of dry hop, this was the most I’ve ever used, but it was certainly worth it. This beer really didn’t last long! Mission accomplished, a great sessionable beer made and enough yeast grown to pitch 1.084 wort on top of. I tasted this alongside an actual Dead Pony Club and they were different, but not by much. Colour was almost exact and aroma was very close. The malt made the difference I think, but with it being so low in gravity and pretty dry it wasn’t really an issue.