Author: Marshall Schott
The rise of IPA over the last couple of decades was due in large part to the release of new hop varieties that departed from the typical floral-earthy-spicy character of the time and offered drinkers delectably unique fruity flavors. While Cascade hops were certainly revolutionary and lit the spark of the craft beer boom, it was Centennial, released nearly two decades later, that many credit as being the gas that got the fire blazing.
Known to impart pungent citrus characteristics with supporting piney, floral, and spicy notes, Centennial was the sole variety chosen by Bell’s Brewery for their Two Hearted Ale, an IPA released in 1997 with the following description:
Brewed with 100% Centennial hops from the Pacific Northwest and named after the Two Hearted River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, this IPA is bursting with hop aromas ranging from pine to grapefruit from massive hop additions in both the kettle and the fermenter. Perfectly balanced with a malt backbone and combined with the signature fruity aromas of Bell’s house yeast, this beer is remarkably drinkable and well suited for adventures everywhere.
Bell’s Two Hearted quickly captured the hearts of craft beer drinkers and rapidly ascended best beer lists, where it has consistently maintained its position. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to this highly lauded IPA, leaving them to either beg friends who do to send them some, or attempt to make a version themselves. Having experienced the deliciousness that is Two Hearted Ale, yet living in an area where it’s unavailable, I was excited to see how close I could get!
| PURPOSE |
Evaluate the differences between commercial and homebrewed versions of Two Hearted Ale from Bell’s Brewery.
| METHODS |
This Doppelgänger xBmt was brewed in collaboration with Bell’s General Store, the homebrew shop connected to Bell’s Brewery, who provided the ingredients based on the Two Hearted Ale recipe.
Bell’s Two Hearted Ale
Recipe Details
| Batch Size | Boil Time | IBU | SRM | Est. OG | Est. FG | ABV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.2 gal | 75 min | 64.3 IBUs | 7.0 SRM | 1.065 | 1.013 | 6.9 % |
| Actuals | 1.065 | 1.01 | 7.3 % | |||
Fermentables
| Name | Amount | % |
|---|---|---|
| Pale 2-Row Malt | 10 lbs | 74.07 |
| Pale Ale Malt | 3 lbs | 22.22 |
| Caramel Malt - 40L | 8 oz | 3.7 |
Hops
| Name | Amount | Time | Use | Form | Alpha % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Centennial Select | 35 g | 45 min | Boil | Pellet | 9 |
| Centennial Select | 35 g | 30 min | Boil | Pellet | 9 |
| Centennial Select | 100 g | 5 days | Dry Hop | Pellet | 9 |
Yeast
| Name | Lab | Attenuation | Temperature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flagship (A07) | Imperial Yeast | 75% | 60°F - 72°F |
Notes
| Water Profile: Ca 130 | Mg 1 | Na 43 | SO4 209 | Cl 75 |
Download
| Download this recipe's BeerXML file |
I received the Two Hearted Ale recipe kit a week before my planned brew day and immediately unpacked it.
While Bell’s relies on a more advanced continuous sparge process, I would be brewing this batch using my standard eBIAB method and started by collecting the filtered water then adjusting it to match the Two Hearted profile provided to me.
As the water was heating, I milled the grain then weighed out the kettle hops, which were all Bell’s Centennial Select.
Once the water was properly heated, I dropped the grain bag in and gently stirred before checking to ensure it’d hit the proper mash temperature.
The mash was left to rest for 60 minutes.
At the end of the mash step, the grains were removed and the wort was boiled for 75 minutes with hops added at the times listed in the recipe. At boil’s end, the wort was rapidly chilled to 66°F/19°C with my immersion chiller.
A refractometer reading revealed the wort was smack on the expected OG.
The wort were allowed to settle for 10 minutes before being transferred to a sanitized Brew Bucket.
I placed the filled fermentor in my fermentation chamber controlled to 66°F/19°C then used some remnant wort to make a vitality starters with the Imperial Yeast A07 Flagship that came with the kit.
I returned 4 hour later to pitch the yeast and noticed signs of activity later that evening. After 32 hours of fermentation, I added the dry hop charge using a sanitized stainless mesh filter.
After 9 days, signs of activity had diminished so I took a hydrometer measurement showing the beer finished very close to the expected 1.011 FG.
At this point, I swapped the airlock out for a CO2 filled BrüLoonLock then reduced the temperature of the chamber to 34°F/1°C.
After a 2 day cold crash, I transferred the beer to a CO2 purged keg.
The filled keg was placed in my keezer and burst carbonated overnight before I reduced the gas to serving pressure. It was at this point the fine folks from Bell’s Brewery sent me a fresh six-pack of the real deal, which arrived a little over a week after kegging. I began collecting data the following weekend, after returning from a trip to Asheville, NC. According to the date on the can, the commercial example had been packaged less than a week before I kegged the Doppelgänger version.
| RESULTS |
Cheers to House Of Pendragon Brewing Co. for allowing me to collect data for this xBmt at their taproom.
A total of 17 people of varying levels of experience participated in this xBmt, all of whom were made aware of the nature of the xBmt as well as the commercial beer in question. Each participant was served 1 sample of the commercial example and 2 samples of the Doppelgänger version in different colored opaque cups then asked to identify the unique sample. While 10 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to accurately identify the unique sample in order to reach statistical significance, 12 did (p=0.002), indicating participants in this xBmt were able to reliably distinguish the Bell’s Two Hearted Ale from a homebrewed version.
The 12 participants who made the accurate selection on the triangle test were instructed to complete a brief preference survey comparing only the beers that were different. A total of 3 tasters reported preferring commercial example, 3 liked the Doppelgänger version more, and 6 people had no preference despite perceiving a difference.
My Impressions: Given the limited amount of real Two Hearted Ale I had, I only attempted 3 triangle tests, and all occurred after an actual participant completed the survey. I was correct every time, it really wasn’t difficult at all. To me, the commercial example had a slightly richer malt character that played well with the Centennial hops, just as expected. The Doppelgänger was perceptibly crisper and drier with a more pungent fruity hop aroma that ran a bit ahead of the malt. While they definitely shared some characteristics, the beers were different, though I thoroughly enjoyed both.
| DISCUSSION |
Bell’s Two Hearted Ale has earned a solid reputation among craft beer lovers and regularly tops best-of lists for good reason– it’s fucking great! With its assertive hop character from hand selected Centennial and arguably old-school malt bill, I’m wont to believe at least some of the reason for all the love Two Hearted gets is because it hearkens back to simpler times, the days when IPA was just IPA.
Like many popular commercial beers out there, not everyone has access to Two Hearted Ale, which sucks, but it’s not all bad, as those so willing can make their own! Of course, in doing so, it can be difficult to know just how close one’s homemade version compares to the real thing. The fact tasters in this xBmt were generally able to tell apart a commercial example of Two Hearted Ale from a one brewed at home suggests they weren’t identical.
There are a number factors that could have contributed to the differences between the actual and Doppelgänger version of Two Hearted, the most glaring to me being the yeast choice. I’ve used A07 Flagship a ton, it’s super clean and tends to buttress hop aroma, which is exactly what I perceived in the beer I brewed. Bell’s Brewery is known to use a house yeast that I have to believe imparts unique characteristics that may explain some of the differences between these xBmt beers. As many participants acknowledged, I too felt the the beers was quite similar in many respects, but the actual Two Hearted had a slightly richer malt character and creamier mouthfeel that I tend to associate with solid Midwest IPA.
Overall, I was quite pleased the Two Hearted Ale Doppelgänger and wouldn’t hesitate to brew it again, though I’d be interested to see how it turned out if fermented with a pitch of Bell’s house yeast. The malt bill reminded me that a little splash of Crystal malt isn’t as evil in IPA as I’d grown to believe, and the Centennial hops… well… who doesn’t love Centennial hops?
If you’ve brewed your own version of this recipe or have any thoughts about this xBmt, please don’t hesitate to share in the comments section below!
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33 thoughts on “exBEERiment | Doppelgänger: Two Hearted Ale From Bell’s Brewery”
Bro! Great xbmt. Was gonna brew a pale next but I think you just changed my mind! Might go for this one. Sadly I’ll have to use wlp001 as I can’t get the yeast strains u guys are rocking. Still sounds like a good one!
Try WLP007
I find that the Bell’s house yeast has a HUGE impact on the flavor and it’s very different than the Chico strain that’s usually recommend. FYI-The Yeast Bay’s Midwestern Ale yeast is the Bell’s strain. Do this experiment again using that yeast & I think you’ll have a much harder time differentiating the two beers.
Bell’s Website gives the process for propagating their yeast if your ambition level is up there…
I’ve used the Imperial Bells Yeast that they sell at the brewery with this recipe and I was not able to distinguish a difference. I had my dad do another triangle test and he couldn’t either so j think you’re on to something here. The yeast really does matter with this beer.
I brew quite a bit of 2 hearted clone beer and found that it is the yeast that makes a difference. The good news is that Bells is live beer and the yeast can be harvested from bottom of the bottles .I’ve worked up starters from as little as 2 bottles of beer and use this yeast quite often for different IPA’s that I make.
this explains why you guys were ignoring our questions about how close the homebrewed versions with select vs regular centennial were to the real thing for the last exbeeriment you did on this!!
🤓
Been looking forward to this series ever since you announced it was in the works, but I have a couple questions:
1) Is the goal to brew the best clone possible? Or is it to get as close as possible with easily available resources? I had assumed in was the former, but that is at odds with with your yeast choice. Anecdotal evidence abounds (just see the prior comments on this thread) that cloning Bells’ beers requires use of their house strain, which is not commercially available but can be harvested from their ales. On the other hand, if the goal is to get as close as possible as easily as possible, than your yeast choice makes perfect sense, especially since it is one recommended by the Bell’s Two-Hearted kit recipe.
2) Since you’re revealing the beer being cloned, don’t you think it would be interesting to add to the post-evaluation survey a question about which sample they thought was the commercial example, and which they thought was the clone? Assuming the tasters had prior experience with the commercial beer, I think that would be more informative than simply which they preferred.
1. It wasn’t my yeast choice, it’s what the folks from Bell’s sent me. I’m not an expert on that brewery and only learned they used a house yeast after brewing the beers. The goal is closest to your former, for sure.
2. That’s definitely something we’re considering and will likely do. That said, it’s not guaranteed participants will have experience with all the Doppelgänger beers.
Also, I stumbled on another secret they wont share. I believe it is fermented at a higher temperature. 74
I just bottled this recipe on Saturday. LHBS was out of Pale Ale Malt so swapped with Maris Otter. Beer was fairly sweet going into the bottle, so curious how it tastes in a few weeks.
I brewed this clone using the AHA recipe several times. It is spot on. I use the Cali 001 yeast. Love it! I have used Flagship and I don’t think it tastes the same. I have some fermenting as we speak.
Hi Marshall, I’m disappointed with this one, the title says “clone” but it should say “brewing a kit” the whole Brulosophy philosophy appears to be slipping away. Joe asks the question ” Is the goal to brew the best clone possible? Or is it to get as close as possible with easily available resources?” Clones almost by definition are approximations of an item that can be made with what is locally available, the grain bill here is “whatever came in the bag” how the heck is someone in Australia/New Zealand (me) the UK/Europe or wherever supposed to duplicate this with so little real information regards the ingredients, the yeast is an exception and thank you to the posters that helped clarify that, Your “I used what came in the bag” just doesn’t do this site justice. Suggest you rename this article Brewing a kit xBmt instead of Doppelgänger (a clone btw) xBmt. Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, just my 2 bobs worth. cheers G
The kit was based on the actual recipe and put together by the homebrew shop that’s attached to Bell’s Brewery. I’m not sure how much closer you can get. And I’m not sure where you saw the word “clone” in any title, that’s a word I’m not terribly wont to use.
List of ingredients are above in the recipe. Yes it came as a ‘kit’, but only in the sense that it was made up by someone else, and not the brewer (and I might add, made up by the homebrew shop owned by Bell’s….not sure how you could get any closer than that.
I’ve never succeeded in cloning anything, with or without the right yeast. I’m not sure why it’s so difficult – maybe something about brewing or packaging at an industrial scale has an impact on flavour?
Having said that, I’m inspired to give the Bells’s recipe a go..
Where did the water profile come from? Did Bells send you that? I don’t see it in the recipe instructions for the kit.
I emailed David from Bell’s after receiving the kits and he sent me the profile they use for THA, which I approximate as best I could.
Could you please share the water profile?
Thanks,
John
It’s at the bottom of the recipe.
Doh! Please ignore my question, I did not see the listed water profile from my phone browser.
Thanks,
John.
I brewed up a batch a few months or more ago using the BYO Magazine published version. We thought ours were almost indistinguishable from the real deal as you can see in our YouTube video about it: https://youtu.be/ksfepd3ZEhc
I’ve made this clone twice, and fortunate was able to sample next to the deal deal both times. I agree that the Chico strain was missing the richness, it’s almost too clean for this beer. And while i greatly enjoyed this version, it was not a “clone” as a result. The second time I pitched wlp005 British ale. It turned out with more malt in the flavor and in my opinion it was closer to the real thing. Also of note, I used centennial that I grew at home during the same season in both batches that were brewed about 2 months apart.
maybe a tiny difference in head? surprising that it was that easy to tell the two apart, did you have a preference?
Personally, I gave a slight edge to the homebrewed version only because it wasn’t as malty, and I prefer a less malty IPA. But both were really good.
I just noticed that Bell’s now sells their house yeast by Imperial.
https://store.bellsbeer.com/products/imperial-yeast-a62-bells-house-yeast
Imperial Yeast A62
Marshall, do you feel your water profile was accurate or would you adjust it for your next batch?
That was the profile Dave from Bell’s General Store told me is used for THA.
With the water profile and Beersmith, are they the figures for the target profile under the water tab in beersmith, or are they the Adjusted Water profile figures?
Here is the water profile that Brulosophy used:
Water Profile: Ca 130 | Mg 1 | Na 43 | SO4 209 | Cl 75
Bells provides this information for the water In their kit’s recipe sheet:
“Approximate Kalamazoo city water report (for reference)”
Ca 120 | Mg 3 | Na 36 | SO4-2 40 | Cl 117
(Question: is the SO4 calculated the same way as SO4-2 or that just a shortcut way of writing the value ?)
Does Bells adjust the Kalamazoo water? They don’t say. Giving us the water for reference isn’t much help if they don’t say if they adjust the Kalamazoo water or not.
I’ve emailed Bells and haven’t heard back.
Does anyone know the water target pH?
I’ve brewed this twice now using my RIMs system. The efficiency of this system using the AHA clone recipe brewing process was higher than the predicted 65%. Hence the first version (10 gal batch) was closer to a dipa at 8.1% abv for wlp001 and 7.6% for wlp051. Split 5 gal fermentations.
The grains were Rahr 2 row, and Root shoot Pale for both sessions. Although, I did reduce the grain bill for the second batch (also 10gal/w split 001 and 051 yeast) by adjusting the efficiency to match the first measured %. We hit the numbers in the second try with the adjustment to match the mash efficiency.
We had similar test result comments with a blind comparison with the wlp001 – drier/crisper. Our tests were not as scientific. The wlp051 version initially had a big yeast hit and so wasn’t comparable. After about three weeks in the keg – wow! The 051 cleared up and tasted fantastic! I’ll rack the beer to a secondary after the dry hop step before cold crashing it. I didn’t do thus the first time.
The second version will be ready to drink in a couple of weeks. I’ll update this with final thoughts. But basically, if you’re looking to brew a great IPA, this is a great place to start. My results prompted us to brew it again to improve it. It is now the standard for my ipa tap handle. I’ll brew it again with some hop variations but the SMASH version is simple and there’s a lot to be said for that! Keys to the brewing process for us were: 150 degree 75 minute mash with 170 degree vorlauf, followed by 170 sparge. No hop spider. Hops directly in the boil. …hmu for more notes of you’re interested.
Nice write up, thanks for the info! I’ve brewed a few versions if this and have struggled to get good hop aroma and was going to try loose dry hopping instead of using a hop cylinder. I noticed you used a stainless hop cylinder similar to what I have and didn’t have any issues, is that still part of your process?