Ranger IPA A/B

Nate (coworker and fellow brewer) was kind enough to provide me with two bottles of his Ranger IPA that he brewed roughly at the same time I brewed mine. To be fair, he actually suggested the clone, although we used slightly different recipes.

I finally got around to opening one of his bottles to compare with what I have on tap. It's a rough task, I know, but I make these kind of sacrifices so you don't have to.

From here on out I'll be refering to mine as Ranger A, and Nate's as Ranger B.

To the comparison...

After the pour both produce a moderate head, very similar, and both leave nice lacing on the glass after drinking. Head retention seems to be the same, not quite disappearing but leaving a nice coating on the surface.

Ranger B on the left, Ranger A on the right. Head is very similar.

On the nose, Ranger B has a more pronounced fragrance of subtle fruitiness than Ranger A. One of the ways ours recipes differed was in the dry hop stage, I think the aroma comes down to this.

As to flavor, there is very little difference between the two, with just a bit more of a 'greener' hoppiness to Ranger B, once again I attribute it to the difference in dry hopping stage.

The major difference between the two is in clarity. This is most likely completely down to the fact that Ranger A is on tap, and has been able to settle in the keg while chilled for a good month now while Ranger B is bottled so has not had the same chance to clarify.

Ranger B on the left, Ranger A on the right. You can see the print on the piece of paper through Ranger A at this point. Ranger B has a bit of chill haze right out of the bottle, but it cleared up quite a bit once it warmed up a little. Once again, this is most likely all due to the fact that Ranger A was able to settle in the keg for a month while Ranger B did not have that conditioning.

All in all, I'm quite happy that both Rangers were so close. It was my first All Grain brew while Nate has been doing BIAB for quite a while now. I took Ranger A down to the LHBC meeting at the end of January and everyone there was favorably disposed towards the clone. I was still being asked for samples after I had already ran out of the samples that I brought down.