Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous BlackIPA vs Badgers Revenge

[Oli1979]

On the 30th Dec 2013 I set out on trying to make a clone of Stones amazing beer for an anniversary beer called Badgers Revenge, but with one difference. Reduce the ABV!
I bought a book:- Mitch Steele IPA, for Christmas and in here it has some of the greatest IPA recipes you could ever want.
After brewing the beer, I managed to get hold of a bottle of Stones Sublimely self-righteous Black IPA in York a few weeks ago, and tonight i'm going to test them side by side and compare.
So here are the recipes:-

Stone Sublimely Self-righteous Black IPA.
ABV: 8.7% IBU: 85 EBC: 197
Pale malt 90.6%
Crystal malt 4.5%
Carafa Special III 4.9%

66% Chinook 90Mins
17% Amarillo Whirlpool stage
17% Simcoe Whirlpool stage

Dry Hop Amarillo % Simcoe.

Whitley Brewery Badgers Revenge
ABV: 6.6% IBU: 61 EBC: 49.2
Pale malt 91.2%
Crystal malt 4.8%
Carafa special II 3.98%

40g Chinook 90Mins
15g Amarillo 5Mins
15g Simcoe 5Mins

Dry hop 55g Amarillo & 55g Simcoe for 11 Days.
Yeast: Dry English Ale

[Oli1979]

Bottles side by side:

[Oli1979]

Poured beers, side by side ready for battle:

So far, looks very very similar, maybe the Badgers Revenge has a bigger head. Not a bad thing!

Very similar colour head, loosely packed off white.


Appearance: Stone is Jet black with a very slight ruby hint. Badgers is Black with a ruby hint, looks like its carbonated more.


The Badgers head is getting bigger! The Stone is subsiding slightly.

[WalesAles]

Aaaargh! Come On! Come On!
Compare! Compare!
WA
What a Tit am I! oli`s post came up just as I posted this! Ooooops
WA

[DeadFall]

I'm going to have to try those recipes. I'm a fan of Stones, so I'm now drooling at the prospect.

[Oli1979]

Ok, tasting notes. firstly I was quite surprised as to how close these 2 beers were. To say the Stone was £7/bottle and the Badger was around £1/bottle to make.

On the nose: The Stone beer was Resinous and citrusy, while the Badger was lacking in Umph, it was still quite citrusy but not as much.

Flavour: Stone was like a hop bomb going off in the mouth, Resinous/ Citrusy and Piney with a following of subdued roastness. Great mouthfeel, almost sherbert like.
The ABV was apparent, but didn't have that alcoholic feel or taste. I think the Hops and roastness masked this. It did however have a slight taste of red wine/ blackberry. This beer was much more of a rounded good mouthfeel beer than the Badger.

The Badger beer was not too far off though, with virtually the same aroma and looks, although a couple of things could improve it if I brewed it again.
The Mouthfeel was obviously different. It had a thinner feel, with the unwanted alcohol taste coming through and lacking in both roastness and hop flavour.
If I had to brew it again, I would use Carafa 3 instead of Carafa 2, and up the weight. Hop wise, I would add more additions at 15 mins, 10 mins and 5 mins.

Overall: Not a bad effort. To taste the Badgers revenge on its own, its a great pint. But to put it up against such a great contender showed its weaknesses.
Well, these 2 pints have gone straight to my head!
Looking forward to comparing my Steam boat Willy and an Anchor steam beer next!

[Goosey]

£7 a bottle?

[Oli1979]

Yep, it weren't cheap.
the only bright side was it was 1pint 6fl ounce. Whatever that means, god damn yanks!

[Skittlebrau]

Hi Oli. Where did you find the 66%/17%/17% hop ratio for this? The grain bill and hop varieties/schedule more or less match everything else I've found for this recipe but haven't seen that written down before...

[Oli1979]

The recipe is from Mitch Steele IPA book. Lots of commercial beer recipe's in there.

[Hanglow]

Nice one

Mitch put the brewsheet for his Supremely Self-Conscious Black Ale collab with Adnams on his website, that was a great beer. You can pretty much work out the grist and hopping from it if you want to try a different one. It was 5%

click to see big pic


" This is an overwhelmingly hoppy beer, with a silky bitterness on the finish, with a subdued roast character present, resulting in a beer which looks like a dark porter, yet drinks like an American IPA.
Hops used: Cascade, Centennial, Citra, First Gold, Galaxy, Sterling
Dry hopped with Galaxy and Citra"

[YeastWhisperer]

You might want to try chilling the wort to 75C before adding the Amarillo and Simcoe. The hops should be allowed to steep at this temperature for twenty to thirty minutes before chilling to pitching temperature. This technique is known as a "hop stand." It is designed to mimic the effect that commercial breweries get while whirlpooling. Alpha acid isomerization does not occur below 79C; therefore, only flavor and aroma compounds are extracted.

If you want to use a dry yeast strain that will leave a little more body, I suggest using Danstar Bry 97. Unlike S-04 and US-05, Bry 97 needs to be pitched at a rate of one gram per liter of wort, or it will take forever to start.

Finally, dull flavor syndrome is usually due to one's mash pH being too high. Make sure that your room temperature mash pH falls into the 5.4 to 5.6 range (which equates to 5.1 to 5.3 at mash temperature). It's amazing how much difference something as simple as mash pH can make in the final product.

[phatboytall]

Great post! loving the Stone link

[Oli1979]

Thanks Yeast whisperer, the mash Ph is definetly something i need to start looking into next.
All my brews so far have been straight from tap into mash with no thought on how it actually effects the final product.
I was told by someone local that our water is soft, which in Mitch Steele's IPA book says is good for IPA's.
Could do with getting a Ph testing kit.

[micmacmoc]

Oil, looking at your signature there you love your IPA! I must get a pH kit too. We have really soft water here too, I'm having a great response from my IPA and my imperial stouts...strong flavours it seems are easy here. When I make a 'normal' beer it's a bit harder, more care required. I guess that's where the skill comes in. Is the brewing network a Jamil show one? I love those shows, enthusiastic, chaotic and informative.