Maximus Cloning

[Chris Banks]

Just having a pint of Maximus Humulus Lupulus and as imitation is the sincerest form of flatery would love to brew somthing similar!

 

Starting with a basic APA recipe im guessing it would be mostly 15-0 min hop additions and a whopping dry hop - possibly Simcoe Centenial Amarillo hops? With a nice clean yeast/ferment.

 

Anyone brewed something similar? I always late & dry/hop my pale ales but they never acheive the maximusness!

 

Any thoughts on a recipe esp the hops and hop quantitys to acheive that that hoppy hoppy hoppy hoppiness!

[denimglen]

Unfortunately I haven't had that beer for ages so I can't really comment.

But I would suggest once you've got a recipe drafted up send it to Steve and see what he thinks.

Personally I think it's a little rude asking a brewer for their recipe straight up but if you put some thought and effort into it most guys seem pretty happy to give you some tips on what you've got so far.

Good luck mate - a great beer and worth a clone.

[Soren]

I've never had maximus but I hear its good. imo, to get big hoppiness you need to look at your recipe AND your techniques.
first of all you need a lot of late hops and these need to be suited for the job. afaik maximus is american hopped, so simcoe, centennial, amarillo, cascade and so forth will go good. I'd probably go something like, 40 ibu's at 60 mins, 15 g/l late hopping and 3-4 g/l dry hop.
The malt bill needs to be fairly clean, 5-10% crystal max, mash low for good attenuation and make it at least 1.060.
Clean yeast, US-05 for example.
technique wise, aside from the clean ingredients you need clean procedures too. the sweet wort needs to be free of husky cloudiness, the beer needs to ferment at a fairly low temperature (I like around 18 for us-05) and needs to be cooled thoroughly after the ferment to drop out all yeast in suspension. copperfloc and isingglass would be recomended. The point of all this is to remove as much haze as possible as this can muddle up the flavour and aroma of the hops.
I would also recommend cooling the wort as fast as possible and add a large dose of hops just before.

So, lot's of late/dry hops. clean procedures. good attentuation. should give you a hop monster.

interesting article on the subject:
http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.htm

[JoKing]

Maximus is predominantly Columbus hops - as well as a wee amount of other US hops. As far as the big hoppy hoppy hoppyness goes just dry hop the living crap out of it: like 250g in a 20L batch. Use Gladfield Ale malt as your base. I cant give too much else away, but there is enough good information there for you to brew something pretty close.

[Chris Banks]

Awesome thanks guys theres some good info there I will let you know how it goes!!

[jt]

Looking forward to a taste of this at a North Welly get together sometime Chris !

[Chris Banks]

Where would I get some gladfields ale malt from?

[Reviled]

Steve at Hallertau? Could be worth an ask, hes normally really happy to help out with things like that.. Its the only place ive ever seen sacks of Gladfield malt...

[MrC]

I reckon Global Cologne (Koelsch) from Liberty would provide a good base for a Maximus style beer.

[JoKing]

You are right Mr Cherry - it would be malty enough for 100% of the malt bill. It would end up slightly darker than Maximus though. No big deal...

[MrC]

I thought that Maximus tasted like it had a truck load of Simcoe late & dry. I don't know much about Columbus though so maybe that was fooling me.

[Chris Banks]

Thats awesome thanks muchly Steve! Thats very good of you!

[Greig McGill]

Awww, where did it go? My RSS feed had it, but only the summary...