How to make a perfect English Pale Ale

One of my favorite styles of beer is and has always been English pale ale. Whether it's Fuller's London Pride, Greene King Abbot Ale, or Wychwood, there's just something special about those beers.

Then there's the American versions of these beers. Take Firestone Walker's DBA, for example. It's a great beer, but there's something different about it. I love their beer, but for me it seems to have more caramel malt flavor to it and not enough hop aroma. It also doesn't seem to be dry enough. The same goes for a lot of the other American ESB's and english style pale ales. There's just something missing.

So what is it exactly that makes the English pales ales that are brewed in the UK so different? I know probably the biggest things are using English ingredients and adjusting the water profile, both of which are easy to accomplish in the US. I've also heard that Fullers does a parti-gyle for their beers, which I have heard can lend an oversparged character to their lighter beers. That's not as easy to accomplish at home.

What are the keys to a very good (and authentic) English Pale Ale? How can I make mine taste more like the originals and less like what's brewed here in the US?

I also find most US interpretations of English beers to be different, if not lacking, from their English counterparts. One thing you need to keep in mind is that the English beer you get is rarely at the peak of freshness, and has often seen less than ideal conditions on the way over. English imports tend to have a certain sweetness from oxidation that's not present in the authentic fresh product (much like American beers imported to the UK don't always taste the same as they do in the US). Plus, the beers produced for export are often not the same as the beers they consume over there.

The important things are, like you said, using proper ingredients and good water. In order to keep things cost effective, many pro brewers use the same grains for English beers that they do for American ones, and if you've ever tried an American crystal malt and an English crystal malt side by side, there's a noticeable difference in the character. Some American brewers do use English base malts, but many do not. I think that's one of the principle differences. But there's also a misinterpretation of what ESB means, and the tendency to mean "strong malty amber beer", devoid of something actually resembling a Bitter. Plus a good yeast. Have to use a good yeast.

Plus, it's a pretty wide range of styles. There's a lot of difference between Fullers London Pride and Fullers ESB (I prefer London Pride any day of the week), but compare those to Wychwood Scarecrow, or Black Sheep, or Coniston Bluebird Bitter, or Adnams Broadside, and they're all very different beers. Some are very hop forward (Wychwood, Coniston), and some are very malt forward (Adnams, Fullers). Some quite clean (Coniston), some extremly fruity (Fullers).

As far as dryness, the use of invert sugar is very traditional in English beer, which is a good way of drying the beer out. It's much like Belgian candi syrup, but there are some slight differences. If you read the work of Ron Pattinson, he's got a great book on brewing vintage English ales for homebrewers, and his blog Shut Up About Barclay Perkins is a great resource too. I personally don't often use sugar in my English beers as I do like them a little maltier, but I also hop them to higher end of style too.

And as far as partigyle, you can absolutely do that with homebrew. Not so much with extract, but with all-grain you can absolutely do it very easily.

I think maybe the thing with English ales is that they have evolved over a long time when compared with their American counterparts; the brewers have nothing to prove as the traditional method has proved itself.

I would say just make sure you use marris otter and a good English yeast and don't try and over-compensate for the simplicity of the recipe to make it your own. Maybe under-pitch the the yeast a little in order to bring out the esters a bit if you are comfortable with your method of calculating pitching rates.

I have been wondering about the same things as you for a while when it comes to a good bitter and I think it might come down to letting the English yeast and malt

sorry, was saying that I think it might come down to letting the yeast and malt do their thing and providing a clean enough malt bill (not too much crystal) and reserved enough hop schedule (maybe just EKG and/or fuggles) that the crispness of the taste isn't compromised and the focus isn't taken away from what matters. Which isn't to say that the hops aren't a key part at all, just that they shouldn't be piled on.

Basically, no idea mate

Qhrumphf said:

I also find most US interpretations of English beers to be different, if not lacking, from their English counterparts. One thing you need to keep in mind is that the English beer you get is rarely at the peak of freshness, and has often seen less than ideal conditions on the way over. English imports tend to have a certain sweetness from oxidation that's not present in the authentic fresh.

Click to expand...

This I totally agree with. I left a couple ESB bottles in a cooler in my garage one summer for about two months. (By mistake) when I finally got them back to the fridge they had that exact same taste or twang or something that the imported ones from the store have.

It wasn't unpleasant. But familiar.

I think using the right water profile, and using English yeasts, English hops, and English grains will go a long way and is really, really big. A friend made an English pale ale a while back and when I asked him what ingredients he used it was something like this.

"Well I didn't want to spend the money on new bulk grains when I had 100 lbs of [American] 2-row sitting here so I just used that"
"I used Citra - I know they're not English but I love them"
"I didn't modify water"

So basically it was an American pale ale with US-04 (or whatever strain it was). It turned out great but needless to say, it was very much NOT an English PA. Bottom line - you need to use the correct ingredients that the style dictates. You can use other things and produce good beer, but you'll miss the boat on style.

I've always wondered why london pride is regarded as good pale ale...fuller's esb is sooooo much better, it's like a london pride on steroid. Anyway, I'm still trying to emulate that english twang...getting closer but still not quite there. I have the fuller's esb recipe which I've brewed many times, each time changing a parameter. Here's what I came up with.

1) maris otter, that's a must or at least an english grain like golden promise, optic etc. I stick with maris otter.

2) yeast : I really dig wyeast 1968, it gives a really nice fruitiness which I like. Plus, it's fuller's yeast so no surprise there. I tried with safale us-05 but didn't like it at all. That's how I discovered how important yeast is. Using us-05 produced a totally different beer, I was quite surprised

3) Water : I use brun'water and boost the chloride a bit for my water to get more maltiness. Water is crucial for any beer anyway

4) fermentation : I tried using fuller's method which is to pitch the yeast at like 63 F then raise the temperature to 68 gradually. I think I had a poor control on that one since I didn't get much esters or fruitiness as compared to pitching at 68.

5) invert sugar : I've only tried once but got poor results. Don't know if I messed up my syrup but it did taste very good by itself but the beer turned out super dry and thin. Not my cup of tea. Since invert is supposed to be common in english beers, I might give it another try.

So, I'm still trying really hard to clone this beer, I'm far from it but at least it's still a very good english beer.