Brewing Trillium's Sleeper Street Clone

When I found out that one of the most popular breweries nationwide had their recipe published in BYO magazine, I knew I just had to brew it. Ok, it's a slightly older issue and it's been published for a while, but I had a few Trillium beers once at a beer share and it's changed my life forever.

Trillium's Sleeper Street is a hop bomb with tons of citrus notes and hints of watermelon, bubblegum, and grapefruit. This would be a perfect time to try out El Dorado hops and see what they bring to the table.

Sleeper Street Recipe

I followed BYO Magazine's Sleeper Street Recipe, but didn't see the need for Dextrose. I spoke with a few friends from the local Homebrew Club and nobody could figure out why the recipe would add dextrose, as it would dry the beer out. New England IPA's are notorious for being full-bodied, so the decision to skip the dextrose was evident.

3.5 Gal Batch with 73% efficiency

81.5% Rahr Pale 2-row

11.1% Flaked Wheat

5.6% Briess Carapils

1.8% Briess Caramel (20L)

Hop Schedule

0.1 oz CTZ (60 min)

0.4 oz CTZ (10 min)

1.0 oz El Dorado pellets (Whirlpool @ 165 - 30 min)

0.9 oz CTZ pellets (Whirlpool @ 165 - 30 min)

2.0 oz El Dorado pellets (Dry Hop Day 6)

0.9 oz CTZ pellets (Dry Hop Day 6)

2.0 oz El Dorado pellets (Post-fermentation @ 60F)

0.9 oz CTZ pellets (Post-fermentation @ 60F)

Yeast: WY1318 (according to this Reddit thread)

OG: 1.068
FG: 1.018

I knew that I'd have a hard time getting hoppy flavors with only one dry hop, so I opted for two. Each dry hop featured about 1 oz of hops per gallon of beer, as in the recipe.

Brew Day

Started brewday by treating Chicago tap water with 2ml of Lactic acid, 4g of CaCl and 1g of Gypsum.

Water Profile

I have a feeling that Calcium is a tad high here, but other values are right where I wanted them to be. I might start using Epsom salt instead of gypsum for future brews.

Water ready, pH measured and the grains are ready to go in. I mashed in a 153F per recipe directions for 60 min.

Grains in to mash at 153F for 60 min

After the mash was complete, it was time to start the boil. Added the first hop addition at 60 minutes, second at 10 minutes. Lastly, I whirlpooled at about 170F down to 150F for 30 min.

Hop additions

My setup ain't much, but the beer is good!

Boil finished, whirlpool all done, now time to chill down to 70 degrees.

The wort was then added into fermenter along with the US-05 1L starter and left to ferment for 2 weeks.

Well, I definitely hit my OG. Recipe told me that I should hit 1.070 but I don’t think my efficiency numbers are quite there yet. Not bad at all!

Left: 1.070 OG. Right: 1.020 FG

And into the fermenter! I added in dry hops along with the yeast after chilling the wort to 66F. Kept it at that temperature until day 5. On day 5, added the second dry hop and allow temp to free rise to 71°F.

The fermentation was done within a week, but I took an extra 5 days to do a diacetyl rest. After 11 days total, the beer was kegged, force carbed for 24 hours at 30 PSI, then set to 15 PSI for another 4 days.

OG: 1.070
FG: 1.020

Tasting and Impressions

3 weeks after brewday, my very own Trillium Sleeper St clone was ready to drink!

First, I'll note that I slightly overshot my OG, but my FG was also a tad higher than the BYO recipe to compensate. When I had the original Sleeper Street, it tasted very full-bodied and had a great mouthfeel, thus I didn't add dextrose into the boil and the FG is right around where many of the similar NEIPA's are.

Left: my clone | Right: Original Sleeper Street

Oh boy was I right. The beer is very close to color and appearance to what's pictured on Trillium's site (right pic). The taste is a phenomenal citrusy hop bomb. It took about a week to come into its own in the keg, but I'm loving every minute of having this on tap. Upon further tasting, I got a good deal of orange with hints of lime and melon, with a nice soft mouthfeel on the finish. No bubblegum flavors that I could notice, but I might work on that for the next brew.

El Dorado shows hints of greatness, but the flavors don't quite pop out like they do with some of the different Citra, Galaxy, and Mosaic beers. It may be worth adding an ounce of Citra or Mosaic in the dry hop for the next iteration to achieve a higher level of juiceness and help boost El Dorado.

Last thing I'll note is that this beer looks slightly different than other Trillium NEIPA's. It's not as hazy as others and not quite as hazy as other NEIPAs in the market at the moment. This is possibly due to the fact that there's only 11% Flaked Wheat in this recipe, or a theory I have about having too high of a pH (5.33 mash pH).

Update 3/20/2021

I've changed the hop schedule for this beer to be added later in the fermentation process. This is something that JC has mentioned on Craft Beer & Brewing Podcast. He suggested that they cold crash to 60F, harvest the yeast, and then dry hop their beers.

This process will help you increase the haze levels and add more juicy character. I'd also increase the hop load as this has been the general trend in the last few years, and I imagine the base recipe changed since its original posting.

Next Iteration

For when I brew this next time, a slightly lower pH would be worth a shot to try to induce a little more haze. In addition, I might seek out a good "booster hop" to bring out some of the more melon flavors from El Dorado. In my tasting, I thought that the original Trillium tasted a little more juicy, either from hop freshness, using a different yeast (or a combination of yeasts), or perhaps from straining the yeast during fermentation.