St. Peter's Organic English Ale

Found this at a local grocer... It caught my attention because the bottle it comes in is shaped like a flask, and the lees on the bottom make it very obvious that this is a bottle conditioned ale. Took it home and drank it, and MAN is this a different sort of beer. I'd have to say that this is what you'd call an English pale ale, although I'm having a hard time describing these flavors. The hops are evident, with a nice floral charecter as opposed to that citrusy flavor us Americans are accustomed to. The bitterness is really quite mild, in comparison to the hop flavor. The maltiness is also rather mild, yet the body is kind of heavy. The carbonation is weak by American standards, but very creamy and smooth.

Conclusion: I've never had a beer like this before, but I'll be drinking more of these in the near future. It's very different, and very, very good.

oh man! I had one of those a few months back and did a double take after tasting it. It was just as you said, unlike any other pale I've had, but very tasty. The hop flavor seemed to be the most attention catching, for me. I don't know what they use, but it tastes earthy and crisp and wonderful, to me.
I recently tried to find it again, but couldn't. I'm in CA and my fiancee picked it up for me at BevMo the first time (she liked the "cute" bottle; I love her). But when I went to a different BevMo they didn't have it. Poop.

Monk said:

oh man! I had one of those a few months back and did a double take after tasting it. It was just as you said, unlike any other pale I've had, but very tasty. The hop flavor seemed to be the most attention catching, for me. I don't know what they use, but it tastes earthy and crisp and wonderful, to me.
I recently tried to find it again, but couldn't. I'm in CA and my fiancee picked it up for me at BevMo the first time (she liked the "cute" bottle; I love her). But when I went to a different BevMo they didn't have it. Poop.

Click to expand...

I don't know if there's an Andronico's near you, but that's were I got mine. They have the English ale, the Golden ale, and the Cream stout. All good, but the English one is definately my favorite...

I'm interested in getting the recipe for this ale. I found another poster asking for this recipe, too, with this as the reply

9 lbs. english 2-row
1 lbs. crystal 60

1.25 oz hallertau (60 min.)
.75 oz. hallertau (30 min.)
1 oz. bramling cross (0 min.)

english ale yeast
burton salts
1 tsp. irish moss

og 1.050
ibu 33

edit: i chose the bramling cross cuz. its the only enlgish hop described as 'fruity'; On st petes website they only list malt and hallertau as ingredients, but describe the finish as 'full of citrisy hops' which sounds like cascades, amirillo, or centennial to me...

Comments? Updates ?

TIA

thank you for posting that recipe. I'd really like to try that, but I don't know how to brew all grain. What would be a good extract equivalent for the 9lbs of english 2-row? I can steep the crystal myself. maybe we can compare our results.

not exact, but 5-6 lb.s of extract.

i had thier porter as i grocery shopped at whole foods one time, i bought it mostly for the bottle, and because it came reccomended by thier highly knowledgable staff, but it didn't blow me away, but i did like it.

There's a very thorough treatment of this issue at home.elp.rr.com/brewbeer/extract/pres.pdf

Here's an extract:

"For the question of converting grain to extract, there is a short and a long answer. The short answer, based on typical all-grain processes and extract characte ristics, is to use 3/4 (0.75) lb of liquid extract for each pound of grain being substituted, or 2/3 (0.67) lb dry extract. Now technically that means that it takes more liquid extract to equal dry extract, but in practice, you can use one conversion factor or the other, even if you plan to mix dry and liquid extracts. My suggestion is to convert the entire amount of grain to liquid extract, subtract off “whole canfuls” (3.3 lb / 1.5 kg increments), and convert the remainder to dry extract. You can convert liquid extract to dry by multiplying by 0.89, or dry to liquid by multiplying by 1.1.
For example, if you are converting 6 lb of pale ale malt to extract, you would need 6 x 0.75 = 4.5 lb of liquid extract. Since you’re buying a 3.3 lb can of extract, this leaves 1.2 lb to make up. Rather than using part of another 3.3 lb can (and wasting the rest), you can use 1.2 lb of dry extract. To be precise, you’d actually only need 1 lb dry extract (multiply the remaining 1.2 lb of liquid extract required by 0.89 to convert liquid to dry). Try it both ways and see."

Thanks, emptyb. I'm printing out that paragraph for the "brewbook", where I keeps all my secrets and notes...

Very helpful. Cheers

monk

I haven't tried the English Ale, but did have their porter which I thought was pretty good.

I was just about to start a thread praising this beer (or brewery), and I decided to do a search and see if others had already done so. Well, I guess I'm not the only one to try this beer. It was a while ago that I had it, but I think it was the Organic Ale. Wow, what a great-tasting beer! It's definitely one of my top 3 favorites. If you haven't tried it, and you find a place that sells it, I highly recommend one of their beers.

I had one (ok, 3!) tonight quite by accident at a local watering hole and was stunned. 99% of the people that frequent this place are BMC drinkers, and to find a great beer like this is shocking. I need to brew this...