Arrogant Bastard's

Stone's Arrogant Bastard is an over the top red ale that I've enjoyed more than a few of over the years, so I was pretty excited when I saw it as a challenge on the Brewing Network's ' Can You Brew It Show".


I was even more excited after I listened to the podcast and learned that Stone was completely unwilling to give any details on the grist or how to brew the beer. Although I've listened to most of the episodes I feel that the CYBI show is pretty bollocks seeing as how they get the full malt/ hopping bill as well as yeast/ sacch temp/ferm temp, why not just have the pro brewer set aside 6 gallons so jamil can ferment it in his garage? That said, they really had to work out what the flavors in this beer were and how to go about achieving them. I'm really impressed with Jamil's "pro brewer" logic of scaling a recipe and then rescaling to acount for grain bag size and most pro brewer's tendency to use a whole bag instead of holding back a few pounds.
Anyways give it a listen, it made way better radio to me than just " here's all the number's, ferment it"


Red Ale # 1 is based on the suggested changes to Tasy McDoles AB clone attempt #1

7.25 g. run off
85% eff
og 1072
fg 1015
90min boil
80ibu rager
colour: ~23srm
yeast:cal ale
mash @ 148


6.35kg pale/2-row
0.50kg Crystal 150
0.25kg Crystal 15
0.25kg Crystal 40
0.25kg Crystal 80
0.15kg Chocolate



28g Chinook @ 85
14g Chinook @ 45
14g Chinook @ 15
14g Chinook @ 0

fermented at 68 degrees for 7 days
and then raised to 72 degrees for 5 days
crash cooled and kegged


This beer does not taste anything like AB. But it kicks ass none the less. Those sharper more aggressive chinook notes are still very far in the background while the caramel notes stick out, brown sugar, buttery toffee, raisins browned with dark sugar, mixed with resiny tree sap from the hops, even at 80 IBU the malt seems to dominate the hop character.
I want to brew this recipe again but sub in some toasty malt character, most likely 20% munich for base malt, or aromatic/ biscuit. This beer is all caramel it needs, some toasty malts.
This recipe is a great starting point for adding roast malts. I will definitely be using this as a base for some brown ales and porters in the future.

Recipe #2 is Based off the actual re brew of AB on Can You Brew It, the recipe is much simpler yet apparently spot on, listen to www.thebrewingnetwork,com/canyoubrewit for more details

7.25Gallon PB
85%Eff
95IBU Rager
1.072 SG
1.015FG
21 SRM
cal ale yeast
148 sacc temp

89% 2 row
11% special B (120L)

chinook @ 12.9%
.85G @85 min
.85G @45 min
.85G @15 min
.85G @ 0 min