Panhead Supercharger Clone (November 2021)

About This Beer

A clone of Panhead Custom Ales’ Supercharger APA — the Upper Hutt brewery’s flagship American Pale Ale and one of New Zealand’s most recognisable pale ales. Batch 18 in Owen’s notebook, brewed mid-November 2021. It sits two brews before his transition to original recipe design: clone (this one) → kit (Greenbacker) → first OP recipe (Hazy IPA I).

Grain Bill

5.25 kg total, classic American Pale Ale structure. The base is 4.8 kg of Gladfield Ale Malt. Colour and caramel character come from a dual-crystal approach: 0.3 kg Briess Caramel 20L for clean honey-caramel sweetness and a golden lift, and 0.15 kg Briess Caramel 40L for toffee depth and a push toward copper. This pairing of Caramel 20L plus 40L is a hallmark of American Pale Ales — the lighter crystal carries the sweetness, the darker crystal carries the colour and toffee notes.

Hop Schedule

A textbook three-hop APA stack — Simcoe, Centennial, and Cascade — at 100 g each, totalling 300 g across boil and dry hop:

Simcoe (100 g) — 10 g at 60 min, 20 g at 10 min, 20 g at flameout (1 min), 50 g dry hop on day 5

Centennial (100 g) — 10 g at 30 min, 20 g at 10 min, 30 g at flameout (1 min), 40 g dry hop on day 5

Cascade (100 g) — 30 g at flameout (1 min), 70 g dry hop on day 5

The notebook shows Citra crossed out on the Cascade row, likely a transcription error rather than a substitution. Calculated IBU: 43.48.

The day-5-from-pitch dry hop timing — into still-active fermentation rather than after primary completion — is the riskiest choice in this recipe. It accelerates biotransformation but threatens to scrub aroma via CO2 off-gassing.

Fermentation

1 packet of Safale US-05 pitched at 19.5°C. The plan: 19.5°C for 5 days, then dry hop. Check fermentation activity at day 10; if slowed, drop to 10°C for 4 days to clear.

US-05 over-attenuated — FG hit 1.008 against a 1.013 target, pushing ABV to 5.91% from a target of 5.2%. This is a recurring US-05 pattern at 19–20°C; it commonly out-performs its label attenuation when not constrained by mash temperature.

Water treatment in the mash: 1 tsp calcium sulphate, ½ tsp calcium chloride, ½ tsp magnesium sulphate — a sulphate-leaning profile suited to a hop-forward APA.

Packaging

Bottled 21.23 L (target 22 L).

Numbers

OG hit target exactly. FG over-attenuated by 5 points. Cost approximately NZD $58 ($2.73/L).

Tasting

• Nose: nothing
• Mouth: bitterness lingers
• Flavour: slightly metallic
• Appearance: golden colour, good head retention, crisp and clear
• Overall: strong flavour

Two notes carry forward:

1. No nose despite 160 g of dry hop on day 5. Dry-hopping into still-active fermentation likely scrubbed aromatic via CO2 off-gassing. Later brews in this collection move toward dry-hopping closer to terminal gravity.
2. Slightly metallic flavour may reflect the ½ tsp magnesium sulphate addition or the overall sulphate-heavy water profile. Worth reviewing if the clone is repeated.

Lineage

Sits in the same APA family as the next notebook entry — the 2021-12-02 Greenbacker APA (LoB kit) — and the later self-designed 2024-10-31 APA Greenbacker. The arc: external recipe (this clone) → external kit (Greenbacker) → own design (Hazy IPA I and onwards).