Mack and Jacks African Amber clone
It's good to know that you can come so close as to fool your friends, I noticed great results as soon as I dry hopped this one, once you do it, you'll never not dry hop.
I'm curious about your price for your batch. Is it all grain? I can make 10 gallons for about 60 bucks allgrain, The big plus on this is that you can bottle it. I can't figure out why they havn't bottled it yet. I think you guys out in Washington have a great leg up on us in the hops dept. being that Yakima is a huge hop resource. My brother tells me they sell hops in the local market he shops at.
I'm glad there is a few of us working on this now, The upside is that even when a batch is not exactly right, it's still awsome.
I priced the recipe using prices from a well known website:
7 pounds Light LME @ $2.69= $18.83
1 pounds Crystal @ $1.75= $1.75
1 pounds Munich @ $1.75= $1.75
0.5 pounds Wheat @ $1.7= $0.85
0.1875 pounds Special B @ $2.15= $0.403125
2 ounces Cascade Hops @ $2.99= $5.98
1 ounces Mt Hood Hops @ $3.99= $3.99
1 package Irish Ale Yeast @ $6.49= $6.49
1 each Bung @ $0.8= $0.8
Sales Tax @ 9% = $3.67588125
Grand Total= $44.51900625
Note that we have a very high sales tax rate here.
I have used pellet hops traditionally. I have a batch in the keg right now that used leaf Amarillo for Cascade, Centennial for the Mt Hood. It is very promising, but still a couple days away. Like I mentioned, hops availability has been sporadic. With enough driving, I can find the exact ingredients, but the three local stores I frequent are quite a distance apart, so I just tolerate a little variability.
I haven't started re-using yeast yet (I tend to value the time savings more than the money savings). I may try to harvest yeast from a growler of the real thing, when I get around to it.
As to bottling the real thing, I love the guys over at the brewery, but they are not too aggressive on the business front. They finally have a website years after that became common (and it's pretty limited). They are located in a small industrial park between auto repair shops, with no exterior signage or pub. They finally created a retail counter, but for the longest time, when I walked in to buy a new pony, somebody who was cleaning kegs would stop, wash up, and come help me. On the flipside, I have heard that Mac & Jack's outsells Budweiser on draft in King County (Seattle's county), which if true would be quite a feat. Let me say, it's a special treat to be able to sit and watch a Mariners game at Safeco field drinking Mac & Jack's.
UPDATE: The batch I just started drinking used Amarillo (8.5%) to substitute for the Cascade. Also, this is the first time I've been able to use Crystal as the recipe calls for (previously have had to substitute Mt Hood). So I have more than one moving variable. Still didn't dry hop this batch.
But this batch tastes even closer to the real thing, with the appropriate cloudiness too. Really fantastic brew.
I have a feeling it is a combination of the two factors. This batch is slightly more bitter (the Amarillo is higher AA than the Cascade), but I suspect the finish is about actually having Crystal for finishing.
I just transferred this recipe into my new kegging system. We'll see how that goes. I dry hopped with a .25oz of Crystal about 5 days into primary and left it in for 4 more days. Smells great and tasted great at racking. The OG was 1.066 and the final came in at 1.014 for a ABV of 6.79% according to Beersmith. I'll update tommorrow what it ends up tasting like.
Yea, you'll see how much difference dry hopping makes compared to the last batch that you made, it really makes everything come together.
OK, I just cracked my first one and it is excellent. I've never had the real Mack and Jacks so I was hoping one of you could explain what this beer tastes like just so I would know if I got close. Either way what I made is awesome. Its a nice amber color with a nice citris flavor at the beginning followed by a nice hoppy flavor.
Yea, that's what seperates this beer from other Ambers. Your expecting a rich malt flavor, and you get that in the beginning, but then there is citrus flavor in there, and no one knows where it comes from when they first drink this beer. Then you take another Taste, and the dry hop cascade fills the nose and makes for a beautiful drinking experience.
This beer goes down so easy, and goes so well with food, you forget it's a little on the high side for the alcohol, and it's very easy to over indulge in this one.
Sounds like you got real close, but you need to make a trip to Mecca and try this one for yourself. There are so many great beers in Seattle, but this one always stood out for me, it is a great find in a world of ordinary beers.
Mack'n jacks....sounds like a nice one to try....Always looking for new receipts...specially ones that get so much attention 
will look back for an AG receipt.....
Just did a farmhouse ale....OG was a bit high... As was final wort temp...gonna let sit for an hour and add
starters... Colour is a nice medium red, nice carmel aromma.....Used english goldings this round.
This was 23 lbs grain for 12 gallon boil, may cut back on the base grains a cple pounds next try ...get OG closer. But maybee not final will tell
Mack'n jacks I like that name
I just wanted to say that I've been holding onto your recipe for a while. I finally made. It's been two weeks since I bottled, and I couldn't wait any longer. It's a great beer. I live in Washington, so I need to go to the bar now to try a Mac & Jacks to compare against mine. Either way, it has great taste and aroma. This was the first time I've dry hopped. Adding the orange peel was a nice touch.
Thanks!
I'm glad you liked it, wait a full month in the bottle, and the flavors really come together.
Is there a reason for using LME vs DME in the extract version. I'm thinking of making it but I usually use DME. I know it would use less DME than LME but is there a flavor difference from using DME instead of LME?
Using origional recipe as basis here's what I have:
6 pds light DME
1 pd munich
.5 pd crystal 50 L
.5 pd carapils
1 oz Centennial 9.3%AA 60 min
.75 oz Cascade 6.2% 2 min
.5 oz Cascade 6.2% dryhop
1/2 oz dried valencia orange peel 30 min boil
Safale 04 yeast
OG: 1.059
FG: 1.014
ibu: 32.1
alc: 6%
suggestions?
DC
Looks good to me, I don't think there would be any difference. When I did extract, my LHBS didn't carry that much DME, and if he did it was usually in 1lb bags, so I never really used it except for starters or og adds.
I'm sure it will come out great. One thing about this recipe, for some reason it comes out very very good as an extract. This is the one beer that I have trouble discerning between extract and All grain.
I just tapped a batch of this that I made about 3 weeks ago (using the recipe I posted earlier in the thread). This time I dry hopped by adding 1/2 oz of Amarillo in a hop sack directly into the keg before I racked and pressurized it (recall that the real Mac & Jack's has a hop sack directly in the keg).
The dry hopping makes this a dead ringer for the real Mac & Jack's. The cloudiness of the original is there, where my previous batches clarified more. The hop flavor and mouthfeel are spot on. I could probably play around with the hop variety (I was unable to obtain Cascade when I bought my stock, which is why the Amarillo was on hand.) Mine is probably a bit too carbonated right now, so I'll purge it down over the next couple of days. My recipe provides somewhat better head retention and foam that clings to the side of my glass compared to the real thing, although this may have to do with using cleaner glasses than the typical pub with residual surfactants on their glassware.
As far as I'm concerned, my quest is over and now it's just about volume and spreading the gospel.
very cool, i'm sure kegging it helped be more like the original also. I think you said you did this as an extract. It's very strange, but this beer is excellent as an extract, and it's hard to tell between that and an all grain batch. I have my latest attempt in the bottle now for about 2 weeks. I'll give it another couple of weeks, it already tastes great.
I just set a corney full of this at a convention where it and 6 other homebrews were featured in a hospitality room. I am proud to say my slightly tweaked version of this was the most popular and first to empty.
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