Speckled Heifer

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine from Minnesota was over at my house, and we were digging into some beers another friend of mine from Wisconsin had brought back. Most of them were from New Glarus, a renowned brewery that only distributes their beer within Wisconsin. I had seen a bunch of their stuff before, as well as the episode of BrewingTV about them. Needless to say, I was intrigued. He brought back a bunch of stuff, including some of the more exotic offerings, but he also brought back their flagship beer, Spotted Cow. Upon sampling this beer, my Minnesotan friend remarked that he really missed Spotted Cow, and lamented its scarcity and lack of availability out here. So I said, "Why don't we try to brew a clone?"

He took me up on it.

The first step was to find a good clone recipe. Fortunately, Northern Brewer posts all of their recipes for their kits online. Their Spotted Cow clone was named, appropriately, "Speckled Heifer". The all-grain recipe looked pretty straightforward: Mostly 2-row, a touch of Carapils, some flaked barley, and flaked corn. I scaled it up for a 12-gallon batch and got this:

Northern Brewer's Speckled Heifer

Batch size: 12 gallons
Expected efficiency: 80%
Target OG: 1.042
Target FG: 1.006
Color: 1 SRM

Grist:

• 15# Great Western 2-row
• 1# Carapils
• 8 oz. Flaked Barley
• 8 oz. Flaked Maize

Mash:

• Saccharification - 152°F for 60'
• Mash out - 170°F for 10'

Boil: 60 minutes total

• 1.2 oz. Cluster (pellets, 7% aa) at 45' to 12 IBU
• 0.6 oz. Cluster (pellets, 7% aa) at 15' to 3 IBU

Fermentation:

• Chill to 65°F, pitch two satchets of rehydrated Safale US-05
• Ferment 3 weeks, then keg

Actual FG: 1.008

A pretty simple grain bill, and a pretty simple recipe overall.

With two kegs, I sent my Minnesotan friend home with one and put the other on the gas before I left for a month. When I returned I'd be able to give it a try. It came out looking pretty great. It tasted great too. Refreshing, bright, very easy-drinking. It's easy to put away 2 or 3 pints of this before you realize that it's a respectable 4.5% ABV.

This past weekend we went over to his house where he had his keg on tap (after a slight SNAFU resulting from me assembling the keg backward). We did a taste test. Three glasses, one of them different from the rest.

The results were encouraging. Of the four of us, two picked out the correct beer as different. Only one of those picked which was actually the original and which was the clone. Suffice it to say, they were close enough for us.

One thing I've noticed in particular is a very bready taste that lingers quite a while. It doesn't really show up until you're done tasting the rest of the beer. I like it. Several others, including those who aren't really beer fans, have tasted it and liked it, so this may have to become a regular on tap at our place.