Thirsty Thursday Brewing Idea of the Week #3: King Sue Clone
This week we're chasing a Midwest whale: Toppling Goliath's King Sue, the double dry-hopped, all-Citra hazy double IPA (~8.5% ABV) that has sat near the top of the national beer rankings since 2014. Named after "Sue," the T. rex fossil at Chicago's Field Museum, it's the bigger, louder sibling of Pseudo Sue — and every documented Sue clone recipe converges on the same architecture: simple pale grist, Citra everywhere, clean English ale yeast, big whirlpool, bigger dry hops.
Target stats: OG 1.076 · FG ~1.012 · ~8.4% ABV · ~70 IBU · 5 gallons
Grist: 15 lb pale 2-row · 12 oz crystal 20L · 8 oz flaked barley. Mash at 152–154°F for 60 minutes.
Hops: 1 oz Warrior at 60 min for clean bitterness. Then all Citra, all day: 2 oz at 5 min, 4 oz in a 30-minute whirlpool at 170–180°F, then the signature double dry hop — 3 oz on day 4–5 as kräusen falls, 3 oz more around day 10–12, 3 days each.
Yeast: White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale (or US-05). Neutral and attenuative — it gets out of Citra's way.
Water: Keep it hazy-soft: chloride-forward, roughly 135 ppm chloride to 67 ppm sulfate.
Why it works: The bitterness comes almost entirely from the whirlpool and dry hops, so the grapefruit, mango, and orange character leads while the bitterness stays firm but not harsh. Dry-hop while fermentation is still winding down so the yeast scrubs introduced oxygen — a trick every good hazy-IPA brewer swears by.
Brew it and let it condition two weeks before tasting. Happy brewing.
This week we're chasing a Midwest whale: Toppling Goliath's King Sue, the double dry-hopped, all-Citra hazy double IPA (~8.5% ABV) that has sat near the top of the national beer rankings since 2014. Named after "Sue," the T. rex fossil at Chicago's Field Museum, it's the bigger, louder sibling of Pseudo Sue — and every documented Sue clone recipe converges on the same architecture: simple pale grist, Citra everywhere, clean English ale yeast, big whirlpool, bigger dry hops.
Target stats: OG 1.076 · FG ~1.012 · ~8.4% ABV · ~70 IBU · 5 gallons
Grist: 15 lb pale 2-row · 12 oz crystal 20L · 8 oz flaked barley. Mash at 152–154°F for 60 minutes.
Hops: 1 oz Warrior at 60 min for clean bitterness. Then all Citra, all day: 2 oz at 5 min, 4 oz in a 30-minute whirlpool at 170–180°F, then the signature double dry hop — 3 oz on day 4–5 as kräusen falls, 3 oz more around day 10–12, 3 days each.
Yeast: White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale (or US-05). Neutral and attenuative — it gets out of Citra's way.
Water: Keep it hazy-soft: chloride-forward, roughly 135 ppm chloride to 67 ppm sulfate.
Why it works: The bitterness comes almost entirely from the whirlpool and dry hops, so the grapefruit, mango, and orange character leads while the bitterness stays firm but not harsh. Dry-hop while fermentation is still winding down so the yeast scrubs introduced oxygen — a trick every good hazy-IPA brewer swears by.
Brew it and let it condition two weeks before tasting. Happy brewing.
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