You cannot “clone” a beer. You can make something in the same vein.
I got the recipe from a friend who got it from someone who worked there.
Most people here recognize the significance that technique and technical details play in brewing. Some more than others and place varying significance on different details. Many of us are just not interested in shortcuts but rather good brewing technique, even when brewing recipes obtained elsewhere. Not sure attacking people for discussing brewing techniques on a brewing forum is appropriate merely because it is not the “light hearted discussion” you were hoping for or because you did not personally gain everything you had hoped for in life from it.
Pedantic much? You can clone a beer and it’s called “fun”!
You’re not discussing brewing technique, you’re arguing over the meaning of the word “recipe”! Let that sink in for a while.
Mahr’s “U”.
Keesmann Herren Pils.
That is two!
No, you cannot clone a beer. You can make one like it and that’s also called fun.
Please let me know if you come across any good info. It is one of my absolute favorites.
Seriously? Send me those Schlitz recipes and I’ll make a clone while you make one like it. 
You are certainly an interesting fella.
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
We first need to establish a definition of clone. I think Denny’s definition is too strict while others definitions may be too broad.
To me a clone beer is a beer so close to the original that I would have trouble knowing it is not the original if handed a glass. Maybe it could pass a side by side, but even then freshness and storage conditions becomes another variable in that test.
Saying we can’t clone because of process X and reason Y is a copout in my opinion. As Jeff mentioned breweries have trouble replicating beers on new equipment all the time, so this isn’t a Homebrew only issue. I remember Lagunitas had issues when they upgraded a while back and I heard Sierra had trouble at Mills River at first. Following this logic would mean that only breweries that monitor and adjust every possible variable as conditions change would truly be able to clone a beer.
When it comes to the OP, he clarified and said he was looking for pie in the sky “what if you could” answers.
Racer 5 - I can drink fresh Racer by the pitcher
Oh… I dunno… Chimaybe you can… 
That’s my all-time number one favorite beer as well. The clone beer book by the Szamatulski’s contains a recipe for it, but I’m afraid I haven’t tried to brew it yet. Someday I’ll analyze it to death and brew it 5 times in a row until I nail it.
If you tried it, you’d know it was “inspired by” and not a clone.
I would go with Dubuque Star - Big Muddy Red… mainly for sentimental reasons. Probably the first beer I really drank that was not BMC, or “mega-craft” like Sam Adams, etc. It is a now defunct brewery from near my home town. It was an unfiltered, hoppy, american amber ale. Nothing overpowering. To be honest, the memory of it is probably better than the reality… perhaps even best left as a memory. I would say it is “the” beer that shifted me toward really enjoying craft beer, brew pubs, home brewing, etc.
I would love to be able to drink it again, and the only way I would probably ever get to is if I could replicate it myself.
I got back into brewing beer (after a 25 year break) with ambitions to clone Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I found the recipe online but it didn’t work. Tried cloning some other beers and they didn’t work either.
I’m not sure what I was doing wrong. There are so many variables, there might be a “butterfly effect” where a small variation in starting conditions throws out the end result by a mile.
I’ve tried quite a few British real ales too and succeeded in making lots of bland beer. :-[
I’d be interested to see that recipe. Cloning something that isn’t SNPA sounds like it might just work.
“If you could have the recipe for one commercial beer which beer would it be and why?”
Avec les bons Vœux de la brasserie Dupont. Because while I have had great success in brewing other beer styles I love, I definitely need work on the Super Saison front. I am happy with my normal saisons, but making a killer big on is a bit elusive.
You need to read more German brewing manuals and hope in ten years you are close to your goal. 8)
The SNPA recipe is incredibly simple. I think it’s their process and attention to detail that makes it what it is.
Ha! Says the guy who doesn’t believe in step mashing