Magic Hat #9 clone brew

Time to brew again!  My Mums, step-dad Dan, and by broski Beaner are coming down to visit in mid-June.  So I wanted to have a nice lighter beer on tap that everyone would enjoy.  So I went to my favorite brewing resource, The Brewing Network, for a vision.  The Brewing Network has a show by the name of Can You Brew It? where listeners request their favorite commercial beers and have the crew try to brew a clone.  The crew, Jamil Zainasheff and Mike McDole, are two massively award winning homebrewers who have the techniques down-pat.  They interview the brewers who make these beers and probe for the recipes and how they go about it.  In August of 2009 they attempted and conquered the challenge to brew up Magic Hat #9, a wonderful, light, and fruity beer almost anyone can appreciate.  On to the recipe!

6 gallons post boil
60 minute boil
Original Gravity:  1.045
24 IBU
9 SRM

Grain Bill:
4.5 kg (10 lb) Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
90 g (0.2 lb) British Crystal Malt 80 ºL
Mash at 152 ºF for 60 minutes

Hops:
7 g (0.25 oz) Columbus 14.4% AA - 14.5 IBU
14 g (0.50 oz) Amarillo 7.5% AA - 9.5 IBU

Yeast:
2 each of Wyeast 1968 London ESB or White Labs 002 English Ale.  Start fermentation at 66 ºF and let the temperature rise to about 72 ºF max for seven to ten days.

Brew day notes:

Made a 1 L starter with 1.035 wort at the beginning of the day to get my yeasty boys (1 pack of Wyeast London ESB) started and ready for what was I was making for them.  The starter also helped build up the cell count to almost double.

Wort making went really well.  Hit the mash temperature on the nose.  No problems with the sparge or boil.  Chilled the wort down to 62 ºF in about 40 minutes and then transferred it to my PET fermenter and pitched my yeast and they started up within about four to six hours.

A week later the yeast flocculated and everything looked to be finished up.  So I racked the beer out of the fermenter and into a corny keg which I let sit at room temperature for another week.  Then it was into the keggerator to chill and condition.

After a couple days in the keggerator, it was time to add the apricot extract.  The way I went about doing this was adding an ounce of extract at a time until I reached the same aroma and flavor as the Magic Hat #9.  It took three ounces to get where they were similar.  I think Magic Hat uses a different extract than the one I used, but I would have to say that they are pretty damn close.

But I would not call my attempt cloned.  My version came out darker than Magic Hat's.  This is due to a more vigorous boil I had this time, concentrating the color and adding a little more caramel sweetness.

Both of these beers are brilliantly clear, just the damn humidity is fogging things up.

None the less, this is still one tasty brew.