English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

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I'll be casking up the three I posted a couple weeks ago on Friday. The Oat Mild and BX Bitter are both fantastic. The Mild in particular. The Pale Mild is pretty bland, as expected (and somewhat intended).

Also, my verdict, I still prefer the Fawcett floor malt over the Crisp floor malt.
 
I have been thinking of an oat mild for a while as I typically have lots of oats around. Can't really get my hands on mild malt easily, but I'll be using your recipe as a jumping off point. How do you like the Progress? I've read mixed reviews.
 
I'd say if you like Fuggles you'll like Progress. Very earthy, with that sort of tobacco note I get from Fuggles sometimes. But without the "dirt" overtones I sometimes get from Fuggles. I like them.
 
Also I'd go ahead and use more oats than I did, as they're kind of lost (and just comes across as a great Dark Mild, not necessarily an Oat Mild). Next time I'd consider cutting out the Maris Otter and using Oat Malt instead in addition to the flaked oats.
 
lowtones84 said:
So my Export India Porter has really turned the corner and is one of the best beers I've brewed. It's a little overcarbed, though. I seem to have this problem only with dark beers, though it's not 100% of the time.

I typically raise the temp at the end of the fermentation a few degrees. Any thoughts? I was thinking that perhaps I'm getting a wild yeast at times that's fermenting stuff from a high mash temp that would be taken care of during fermentation on a lower mashed beer, but there isn't really any off taste to be spoken for. Perhaps I should give a gentle rouse a couple of times with these English yeasts that floc out so hard? Raise the temp even more at the very end?
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Lots of english yeasts can go on more than you think - some have relatively high oxygen requirements that are overcome in traditional breweries by rousing for example, the true ringwood strain needs roused or it stops before it's done - then when the beer is racked/bottled etc it can kick off again. There's the double drop method too that they still use at brakspeare .


If you can get enough o2 in by using o2 effectively at the start of fermentation using pure o2 then you probably won't need to rouse, or if the strain has lower oxygen requirements - whitbread b for example (S-04), then you shouldn't need to use either pure o2 or rouse. That's assuming you are of course pitching an appropriate amount of viable yeast


I did a reasonably well hopped bitter a few months ago which included 60g of progress, I like it more than the fuggles I have had in the past. It's still a mild-ish british hop
 
Thanks for the info. I don't have a pure o2 setup, but I pour through a sanitized strainer and then also use an immersion blender "wand" for a bit to whip up a nice foam. My beers are -usually- relatively low OG as well, but it does seem that once in a while I think they're finished, then I bottle and it kicks off again. It still seems to me that it happens only in my dark beers too, but perhaps I'm forgetting something.

I have been using wlp002 in the past, but have moved to 007 for the past couple of batches. I do pitch a good amount of viable yeast, and I pitch the starter while still active. If anything it's probably a bit of an overpitch for my 4g batches setup.
 
I'm gonna be trying out a dark mild vaguely inspired by one of the recipes in Modern Homebrew Recipes. Hoping to brew this weekend or next.

5lbs maris otter
0.75lbs dark crystal
0.5lbs extra dark crystal (160)
0.25lbs chocolate

1oz willamette at 45 minutes

Yeast is still undecided, leaning towards 1318 though so I can reuse it in a bitter.
 
I encourage biscuit as well, though not totally necessary. The choice between chocolate vs. pale chocolate is a matter of preference in my opinion, as standard chocolate gives a slight roast character that I actually enjoy. Did you calculate the srm on that? By first glance it seems like it would be closer to a porter or stout, though I suppose it doesn't matter all that much. Even if you brew it as is, I suspect you'll have a tasty beer on your hands :mug:
 
What about using brown malt -- about twice as much -- instead of chocolate? It won't be quite as dark. (I have several pounds of brown malt looking for a purpose.)
 
To me, Brown malt has a very strong toffee flavor. Like really strong.

Was great in a brown ale that I made.
 
iijakii said:
Urge you to consider some biscuit in there, and pale instead of std chocolate. It's magic.
Click to expand...

I'm planning on using Fawcett pale chocolate.

lowtones84 said:
I encourage biscuit as well, though not totally necessary. The choice between chocolate vs. pale chocolate is a matter of preference in my opinion, as standard chocolate gives a slight roast character that I actually enjoy. Did you calculate the srm on that? By first glance it seems like it would be clsoser to a porter or stout, though I suppose it doesn't matter all that much. Even if you brew it as is, I suspect you'll have a tasty beer on your hands :mug:
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SRM is a little over 21.

z-bob said:
What about using brown malt -- about twice as much -- instead of chocolate? It won't be quite as dark. (I have several pounds of brown malt looking for a purpose.)
Click to expand...

I made a porter using the 9:5:5:1 (pale:brown:amber:black patent) portions outlined in Designing Great Beers that turned out really well. It would be a good way to use up some brown malt, and the brown malt character really comes through. I'm not sure if it's something I'd want in a mild though.



How does this updated recipe look?

5 lbs maris otter
.5 lbs dark crystal
.25 lbs extra dark crystal (160)
.375 lbs amber/biscuit (UK sourced ideally)
.25 lbs Fawcett pale chocolate

1oz Willamette at 45 min

Wyeast 1318 probably

5.5 gal OG 1.034 17.5 IBU ~18SRM
 
I made a porter using the 9:5:5:1 (pale:brown:amber:black patent) portions outlined in Designing Great Beers that turned out really well. It would be a good way to use up some brown malt, and the brown malt character really comes through. I'm not sure if it's something I'd want in a mild though.
Click to expand...

I'll try some soon in a brown ale. (no idea if it's Northern brown or Southern brown, or just some Yank abomination) For 4 gallons:

5 lb American pale ale, 3.5L
8 oz UK brown
8 oz American crystal, 120L
English hops or Willamette, 22 IBU's
Windsor ale yeast

I have all of these ingredients already. It should end up about 3.9% ABV. I think I have an ounce or two of Bramling Cross hops left, so I will probably use that.
 
Here's an Ordinary Bitter showcasing WGV I brewed Sunday night (mashed at 152F, fermenting at 67F, has just gone quiet today), repitched from my previous Pale Mild (I'll be tapping a pin of that tonight). It's strikingly similar to my previous Bramling Cross Bitter, just significantly lower gravity and hopped a little differently. While I kill off the last of a pin of the BX Bitter. Which came out beautifully.

In both cases, I targeted my go-to profile for Bitter using some gypsum and CaCl, with an approximate profile of ~100ppm calcium, ~20ppm sodium, ~70ppm chloride, ~175ppm sulfate, and my base water is ~75ppm alkalinity but knocked down with acid.

5 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Thomas Fawcett) (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 85.1 %
6.0 oz Crystal Dark - 77L (Crisp) (75.0 SRM) Grain 2 6.4 %
8.0 oz UK Invert #2 (32.5 SRM) Sugar 3 8.5 %
0.75 oz Phoenix [10.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 32.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Whitbread Golding Variety (WGV) [8.70 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 5 8.8 IBUs
0.25 oz Phoenix [10.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 6 2.1 IBUs
0.50 oz Whitbread Golding Variety (WGV) [8.70 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 7 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg West Yorkshire Ale (Wyeast Labs #1469) Yeast 8 -
1.00 oz Whitbread Golding Variety (WGV) [8.70 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 9 0.0 IBUs

Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Measured Original Gravity: 9.0 Plato
Est Final Gravity: 2.0 Plato
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 3.7 %
Bitterness: 42.9 IBUs
Est Color: 7.6 SRM
 
tgif said:
I'm planning on using Fawcett pale chocolate.



SRM is a little over 21.



I made a porter using the 9:5:5:1 (pale:brown:amber:black patent) portions outlined in Designing Great Beers that turned out really well. It would be a good way to use up some brown malt, and the brown malt character really comes through. I'm not sure if it's something I'd want in a mild though.



How does this updated recipe look?

5 lbs maris otter
.5 lbs dark crystal
.25 lbs extra dark crystal (160)
.375 lbs amber/biscuit (UK sourced ideally)
.25 lbs Fawcett pale chocolate

1oz Willamette at 45 min

Wyeast 1318 probably

5.5 gal OG 1.034 17.5 IBU ~18SRM
Click to expand...

Roast malts were rare in milds but are becoming more common. You have a point with the brown malt. I keep it as the core Porter malt, but my local brewery uses small amounts of Brown and Chocolate malt in their mild. They've been brewing it continuously for about a hundred years and I bet they have changed the recipe a lot. Punters swear it hasn't changed since the 70s but I bet it has.
 
z-bob said:
I'll try some soon in a brown ale. (no idea if it's Northern brown or Southern brown, or just some Yank abomination) For 4 gallons:

5 lb American pale ale, 3.5L
8 oz UK brown
8 oz American crystal, 120L
English hops or Willamette, 22 IBU's
Windsor ale yeast

I have all of these ingredients already. It should end up about 3.9% ABV. I think I have an ounce or two of Bramling Cross hops left, so I will probably use that.
Click to expand...

Gonna brew this today. Is that too much dark crystal malt? I have some crystal wheat malt 40L that I could substitute for half of the 120L.
 
Not sure where he is going with it, if you want loads of different subcategories then fine, but as far as I can see it's just a part of golden ales (slightly less top end strength, new world hops only) and a smaller part of pale ales as a whole. Also, a bunch of older golden ales fit the bill in taste at least, like Bitter & Twisted tastes new world hoppy but is hopped with slovenian hops mainly and it's been around since the late 90s. Plus I can think of the likes of clockwork putting out a few then too

The rise of the pale'n'hoppy draught beer though has been quite evident since I started drinking. I wonder what will come next? We must have reached peak paleness :)
 
Yeah, agreed. I was mainly sharing for the sake of Americans who don't have access to modern widespread cask ales. A British ale of 50IBU and 1.035OG doesn't fit anywhere in BJCP, specially when packed full of New World hops.
 
:mug:

I think one of the problems with current homebrewing is people using the Tinseth formula for bitterness. Graham Wheeler has ranted about this before on forums and blog posts, how tinseth is useless for estimating true IBUs - Boddingtons used to be 35 IBU measured or so back when it was good in the mid 70s, but if you used tinseth in brewing software then you'd really have to use enough hops in your recipe to calculate closer to 55 IBUs to get the right, measured, figure.

Hopcraft are a brewery who put the theoretical IBUs on their pumpclips, a lot of their golden ales say they are 50, 60, 70, 80 IBUs but I suspect as they are such a small outfit that that is just the calculated IBUs and in reality it's much lower, if one was to measure them . Still tasty beers but wouldn't fit in the BJCP guidelines like you say


And that's before you even get to finishing gravity and the mineral makeup of the liquor which all affect the perception of that bitterness
 
I know the Hopcraft guys. Their IBU calculations would be difficult as they add most of the hops post-boil. Good, tasty beers, though. I went to a tasting event in a pub shortly after they opened. Pints and pints of free beer. Good memories.
 
I found myself listening to the "Best Bitter" episode of "Brewing With Style" while on my long drive down to judge a comp yesterday. I wanted to scream. The guidelines are bad enough. JZ said they were wrong (fair enough), but in reality what he was spouting was even worse.
 
Qhrumphf said:
I found myself listening to the "Best Bitter" episode of "Brewing With Style" while on my long drive down to judge a comp yesterday. I wanted to scream. The guidelines are bad enough. JZ said they were wrong (fair enough), but in reality what he was spouting was even worse.
Click to expand...

Hah, yeah. The other day I took a picture of a particularly pale pint of bitter to show people they can indeed be truly pale. I doubt it had anything else than pale malt and a dash of wheat.
 
Qhrumphf said:
I found myself listening to the "Best Bitter" episode of "Brewing With Style" while on my long drive down to judge a comp yesterday. I wanted to scream. The guidelines are bad enough. JZ said they were wrong (fair enough), but in reality what he was spouting was even worse.
Click to expand...


I'm just curious, what would you propose as an alternative?
 
First brew since November tomorrow, and it's a tough decision between by house mild or house bitter with some slight modification for a "winter" version. My usual house bitter (four gallon batch):

Est OG: 1.046
Est IBU: 30ish
Est SRM: 6.3

4 lb., 14 oz. MO
10 oz. Flaked Barley
4 oz. Crystal 77L
6 oz. invert #2ish
1.5 oz. Acid Malt (ph adjustment)

.33 oz. Target (11 %) @ 60
.13 oz. Target @ 20
.25 oz. EKG @ 20
.17 oz. Target @ FO
.25 oz. EKG @ FO
.4 oz. Target Hopstand @ 70F for 30 min. (Target temp for both additions was 170)
.75 oz. EKG Hopstand @170F for 30 min.

Thoughts on modifications: Toasted flaked oats instead of flaked barley, some Bramling Cross late instead of the target, perhaps some biscuit malt for that toasted bread quality, 1 oz. of black patent to approach a more copper color (or just using a darker crystal).

Just bouncing some ideas off of the great minds around here. Cheers, fellas! :mug:
 
tgif said:
I'm just curious, what would you propose as an alternative?
Click to expand...

Something more in line with reality. He clearly based everything off of London Pride. And most US judges do as well. Because it's the only one they know. Which is not typical of all of them by a long shot. Even the BJCP guidelines are closer than what he was calling them.
 
Qhrumphf said:
Something more in line with reality. He clearly based everything off of London Pride. And most US judges do as well. Because it's the only one they know. Which is not typical of all of them by a long shot. Even the BJCP guidelines are closer than what he was calling them.
Click to expand...

Does London Pride come across as clearly dry hopped in the US? Not all special bitters are dry hopped in the UK although many are.
 
Qhrumphf said:
No. It comes across as a malt bomb. Almost every other Bitter I've had clearly has a higher hopping rate, or is much more fresh.
Click to expand...

The cask and the cans are better at keeping the dry hop aroma. Very floral. It's quite balanced between hop and malt. Much more bitter and less malty than any German beer (I always get London Pride on the plane back from Germany). ESB is more on the malty side. Neither one is the palest or hoppiest nor the maltiest. ESB on the malty side but LP is middle of the road.
 
JKaranka said:
The cask and the cans are better at keeping the dry hop aroma. Very floral. It's quite balanced between hop and malt. Much more bitter and less malty than any German beer (I always get London Pride on the plane back from Germany). ESB is more on the malty side. Neither one is the palest or hoppiest nor the maltiest. ESB on the malty side but LP is middle of the road.
Click to expand...

Yeah, London Pride I definitely find more bitter than the ESB, but more malty than other Special Bitters (only one I've had to come close is the Wadworth 6X). The ESB's a straight up cloying caramel mess. Now, most Strong Bitters that make it over here are very strong and very malty, but from what I understand the Export formulations (perhaps even for the Special Bitters) are different than the domestic ones.

They're also all old, and that's part of the problem. My guess, because Fullers is distributed far more widely than others, it may actually see more shelf time than others do. I don't buy it often, so I don't remember the dates. I got cases of Coniston, Wadworth, and Timothy Taylor that from date stamps (except the TT where I couldn't find one) seem to suggest a couple months old, and they all taste it. I bought a pack of Sam Smith Organic Pale Ale that was several years old after I was able to check the stamp (Samuel Smith's also getting wide distribution). I see bottles of Cotleigh Tawny Owl from time to time with a best by date stamp of 2011. So most of them have that cellar caramel sweetness.
 
Qhrumphf said:
Here's an Ordinary Bitter showcasing WGV I brewed Sunday night (mashed at 152F, fermenting at 67F, has just gone quiet today), repitched from my previous Pale Mild (I'll be tapping a pin of that tonight). It's strikingly similar to my previous Bramling Cross Bitter, just significantly lower gravity and hopped a little differently. While I kill off the last of a pin of the BX Bitter. Which came out beautifully.

In both cases, I targeted my go-to profile for Bitter using some gypsum and CaCl, with an approximate profile of ~100ppm calcium, ~20ppm sodium, ~70ppm chloride, ~175ppm sulfate, and my base water is ~75ppm alkalinity but knocked down with acid.

5 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Thomas Fawcett) (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 85.1 %
6.0 oz Crystal Dark - 77L (Crisp) (75.0 SRM) Grain 2 6.4 %
8.0 oz UK Invert #2 (32.5 SRM) Sugar 3 8.5 %
0.75 oz Phoenix [10.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 32.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Whitbread Golding Variety (WGV) [8.70 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 5 8.8 IBUs
0.25 oz Phoenix [10.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 6 2.1 IBUs
0.50 oz Whitbread Golding Variety (WGV) [8.70 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 7 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg West Yorkshire Ale (Wyeast Labs #1469) Yeast 8 -
1.00 oz Whitbread Golding Variety (WGV) [8.70 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 9 0.0 IBUs

Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Measured Original Gravity: 9.0 Plato
Est Final Gravity: 2.0 Plato
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 3.7 %
Bitterness: 42.9 IBUs
Est Color: 7.6 SRM
Click to expand...

Gravity sample of this before hitting with dry hops, hit 2°P right on the nose (that's ~1.036 to ~1.008). And I absolutely love it. Gonna put it into pins on Friday.
 
Nice, I've never used phoenix or whitbread golding. I'll be brewing mine tomorrow, likely with an EKG/Fuggles combo, though I do have some Bramling Cross squirreled away...
 
Aiming at an EIPA with EKG and Cascade for the next one. Just in time to serve at my birthday :-D All MO and a tad of sugar, aiming at 1.055 and 45IBU aprox. Some amylase enzyme to keep it dry.
 
The poor selection of English Bitters in the states is what led me to start homebrewing in the first place. We get a handful of old bottles from the UK, and American Brewer interpretations of "ESB" which are mostly based on those non fresh bottles. Malt bombs with not much hop character.

I haven't been to England to try the real deal, but there is a brewery in San Francisco called Magnolia who take a traditional approach to bitters with all English ingredients and use of casks. This place really made me fall in love with the style. My experiences there along with great information on the web like this forum and The Perfect Pint Blog has helped me produce my own.

Whenever I have someone try my bitter, I call it a bitter and 9/10 the response is "oh an ESB?", then they typically think it's too light in color and too hoppy for the style, but really enjoy it.

Here is my most recent one with Golden Promise, Marris Otter, Torrified Wheat, First Gold, Syrian Goldings, and Fullers yeast:

n1urgp.jpg
 
That does sound nice. If I take SNPA as a comparison, I'd say a special / premium bitter is both less malty and less hoppy. Often paler as well. But I tend to find most American beers to be very malty. Some of them unbearably malty (like Hop Rod IPA and almost any big beer). They just have more hops to try to compensate, but really I'd prefer them to be leaner and drier. Comparing with German styles, pretty much all British styles are more bitter and hoppier and less malty. Maybe not porters, but the rest tend to be. Czech beers will be as bitter as British ones but all the German ones are quite mellow.

Snubnoze707 said:
The poor selection of English Bitters in the states is what led me to start homebrewing in the first place. We get a handful of old bottles from the UK, and American Brewer interpretations of "ESB" which are mostly based on those non fresh bottles. Malt bombs with not much hop character.

I haven't been to England to try the real deal, but there is a brewery in San Francisco called Magnolia who take a traditional approach to bitters with all English ingredients and use of casks. This place really made me fall in love with the style. My experiences there along with great information on the web like this forum and The Perfect Pint Blog has helped me produce my own.

Whenever I have someone try my bitter, I call it a bitter and 9/10 the response is "oh an ESB?", then they typically think it's too light in color and too hoppy for the style, but really enjoy it.

Here is my most recent one with Golden Promise, Marris Otter, Torrified Wheat, First Gold, Syrian Goldings, and Fullers yeast:

n1urgp.jpg
Click to expand...
 
JKaranka said:
That does sound nice. If I take SNPA as a comparison, I'd say a special / premium bitter is both less malty and less hoppy. Often paler as well. But I tend to find most American beers to be very malty. Some of them unbearably malty (like Hop Rod IPA and almost any big beer). They just have more hops to try to compensate, but really I'd prefer them to be leaner and drier. Comparing with German styles, pretty much all British styles are more bitter and hoppier and less malty. Maybe not porters, but the rest tend to be. Czech beers will be as bitter as British ones but all the German ones are quite mellow.
Click to expand...

How old are you getting SNPA? I'm guessing it's age. It's very hoppy, but not particularly malty at all. Age would bring out malt sweetness, and darken it too. Exactly what we see from most European imports.
 

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