What is that unique flavor with Sam Smith beers?

Sam Smith IMO makes some of the best beer worldwide. I have a sheet that gives most of their grain bills and they are simple beers but I can't seem to get that flavor nailed. They mostly use EKG and Fuggles

Is it the water?

Water and they ferment in open stone squares.

What he said. See above.

Could be hints of oxidation. Jamil Z tells a story about entering some English style beers in competition and how he kept getting dinged for missing a certain English character in them. Next time he entered an old one (oxidized) and won best of show or something like that. So basically what was hints of oxidation from the journey from the UK to the USA were interpreted as English character. He told a similar story of Australian home brewers trying to mimic American styles. He thought their beers were great but they were convinced they were missing something. One of them brought some commercial examples from the US and he told them it was oxidation.

Do you think the stone fermenter impart anything? I've done open fermentation and pretty much do it for 2-3 days on all my brews

Now if I can somehow nail the water profile

2 guesses:

Yeast

Or

Oxidation.

I think many English beers I try are a bit older than they should be, but for many of them, the age means they take on a unique sweetness. I thought it was a feature until I tried a several-years-old Pete's Wicked Ale that was hiding in the singles section of a beer store.

Bewm. Same flavor.

Or, like I said, yeast strain.

Thanks for the replies.

I think you can rule out the old factor as I've been to England a few times and experienced the same something in flavor. Same thing with the firkins at NERAX

I'll go with the yeast and open fermentation as well; their water may be really minerally as well. I don't know if they pasteurize or not (I suspect they do), but that can add a weird flavor to a beer.

Anyway, are you going to pony up the recipe sheet you have or not? That's the real question here. And where did you get it?

FarmerTed said:

Anyway, are you going to pony up the recipe sheet you have or not? That's the real question here. And where did you get it?

Click to expand...

+1. By the way, awesome screen name FarmerTed

Thanks, for the avatar, lol.

FarmerTed said:

I'll go with the yeast and open fermentation as well; their water may be really minerally as well. I don't know if they pasteurize or not (I suspect they do), but that can add a weird flavor to a beer.

Anyway, are you going to pony up the recipe sheet you have or not? That's the real question here. And where did you get it?

Click to expand...

I'll dig it out - it used to be available on merchant du vin website s a PDF - ill post the link if I can find it