What Community is Your Symbiotic Connection?

Made with three varieties of hops and a generous amount of specialty malts, Atlas ​Brew Works ​states ​on its website that Rowdy —​ a hop-forward Rye Ale — ​offers a complex flavor and aroma that is both​,​ “aggressive and fun.​”​

​Sharing recipes and ideas is commonplace in the craft beer world, so it’s no shock that scaling down Rowdy and sharing it to the homebrew community happened as the beer was a part of the American Homebrewer Association’s ​51 Cloned Beer Recipes recently released online.

Daniel Vilarrubi, the Head Brewer at Atlas, said he likes to think the Washington DC brewery has a good relationship with local homebrewers.

“We’ve had DC Homebrewers host an educational event here for Learn to Homebrew Day and we get homebrewers coming through from time to time ​to drink beer and talk brewing,” he said. “I think things like having homebrew clubs hosting events at the brewery is pretty symbiotic.

“It helps our business grow and it gives them a space to do presentations.”

​It can be a driver for some local business perhaps, but having a cloned beer recipe on a website isn’t exactly going to generate a ton of Q-rating.​

​”I figured that this is mostly reaching homebrewing enthusiasts and they tend to be pretty caught up on the local brewing scene here in DC,” Vilarrubi said. “Also it’s a fairly small industry here still, so we’re one of only a handful of breweries to begin with.

“I wanted to submit a recipe just because it sounded like a cool project and I like helping out the BA and AHA when I can.”

Scaling down the recipe wasn’t very hard at all​, he noted​.

​”​I just scaled down the ingredients to a ​five-gallon batch and then made slight tweaks to adjust for decreases in mash efficiency and hop utilization​,” Vilarrubi said​​. “​I haven’t tried brewing the recipe yet so I can’t really say how close I got with it.​”​

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