Beers to be Cloned or Bettered!

Last week I picked up the current edition of Brew Your Own magazine as something to read while chilling out by the pool and enjoying the Virginia evening sunshine. On a side note, we have had fantastic weather here since arriving from South Carolina, temperatures in the mid 80s (high 20s for my European readers), and almost wall to wall sunshine. Ideal for sitting by the pool and reading.

Anyway, back to beer, this edition has a selection of clone brews for both the all grain and extract with grains brewer, which got me thinking about the beers in this world I would love to eventually learn to "clone". So far in my homebrewing ventures I have mainly messed around with established styles, such as the smoked chocolate porter I did last time round.

Even so, here are a few of the beers I would love to clone - on that basis that I can't buy the original here in Virginia:

• from the Porterhouse in Dublin, a simply magnificent stout which I could happily spend a rainy afternoon pouring down my throat, while watching the rugby.
• Samurai IPA from Kocour back in the Czech Republic - what a flavourful and drinkable beer that was, and a great beer to drink almost daily in my last month in Prague.
• Kout na ?umavě's entire range, in particular the 10˚.
• Schumacher Alt - had it in Berlin at an arts festival, love at first sip.

One beer I either want to emulate or better is the English Pale Ale from Primátor, which was Mrs Velkyal's favourite beer when back in Prague, so to have something of that merit would be a cap in the feather!