What is teh best kit for a 'Guiness' clone'

[Stusbrew]

Hi all,

New to the site but I have been trolling the threads for advice for some time. I have just completed my third kit brew.

My first kit was the standard lager (I know it is not a real lager) that came with the Coopers kit. To be honest, not that happy with it and I feel I was to eager and bottled far to soon after just 7 days. Had a yeasty / metallic  taste after 2 weeks bottled. Nw 8 weeks later it has improved but still not great.

Second kit was the John Bull IPA which I followed per the instructions but added slightly more sugar. Better than my firat kit but still plenty of room for improvement.

I have just brewed the Young's American IPA as per instructions and all looks good so far. Going to leave in primary fermenter for at least 2 weeks then switch to secondary with dry hop addition for a further week. Bottling for a minimum of 4 weeks (ideally I want this ready for Christmas).

For my next brew I would like to here opinions on the best kit for a replica 'Guiness' clone. If anyone has any suggestions and tips they will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[LordEoin]

I like the Coopers Irish stout kit with DME and crystal.
But honestly you'll find it hard to get a guinness clone from a kit as a lot of our perception of Guinness comes from the nitro.

[auralabuse]

I second Lord Eoin. Unless you keg it, force carb and run through a stout tap with nitro mix you won't get a Guinness clone. You can reproduce bottled Guinness to good effect with the Coopers kit with the hack mentioned

[Bubbles]

For all its popularity, Guinness is a pretty wacky beer. The distinctive tang is achieved by souring and pasteurising a portion of wort before it's added back to the main beer. This is another reason why you'll never reproduce Guinness using a kit.

I think that some beer styles can be done well with kits, but not stouts and porters. At least, not without doing some steeping grains to freshen them up a bit.

[molc]

Yeah I'd echo the opinions on kits and making a good stout. I tried the coopers kit with no mods for my first attempt and it wasn't a patch on my extract version, which in turn wasn't a patch on my first all grain stout. It's a surprisingly tricky style for kit and extract, as you're aiming for that fresh roast barley to dry out the beer, along with quite a low temperature mash to get a very fermentable wort, again for that low FG and dry finish. Kit and DME are usually around the middle territory for this.

If I was making a kit or extract version, I'd instead aim for the Cork stouts like Beamish. They use crystal to give a sweeter body, which would work well with the Coopers kit and some steeped crystal and maybe a touch (~40g) of roast barley or black malt.

If you want to be more adventeruous, push the hop freshness a bit with some EKG hops. Finally, you could try to give some interesting yeast character with some WLP004 if you have temp control.

[nigel_c]

I remember reading posts about someone looking for the same results a good while ago. They poured a pint of Guinness and left it out for a few days to sour before boiling and adding to the kit. Much the same as a sour mash really.
I'd also change out any kit yeast and go for something with a high known attenuation to dry it out because kits can finish a bit sweet.
Steeping a small amount of roasted barley will make a massive difference to any kit. Will give a real injection of freshness.