British Style Amber Ale

[Morrey]

Wife asked for an amber type of ale, and based on her tastes, she likes a mildy-malty British ale that doesn't rock your socks off with hops. I'll say "balanced" is the keyword.

Its time for me to do some ingredient cleaning with some odd bits and pieces to use w/o having to go buy anything:

5.5G batch, and the ingredients I listed I feel would be ok in an ale as discussed

For yeast I have S-04

For grains I have 5# Marris Otter
Lots of pils and 2 row
plenty of Carapils
2# Special Roast
and assorted amounts of C20, 40 and 60 and some melanoidin if needed

For hops I have plenty of Fuggles
1 oz Bullion
4 oz EK Goldings
2 oz Celeia Goldings

If anyone can help me cobble together a recipe for a decent British style amber ale, I'll plug into BS and dial in my numbers.

Thanks!!

 

[jekeane]

I would go for a 1.050 - 1.054 OG
Mash at 152°

This will be on the lighter end of an amber without any c120 or a dehusked black malt. If you have it I would color with some dehusked malt during the sparge or at the end of mash. If you have 120 I might go 50/50 with the c60.


41% MO (or use your full 5# and take it out of the 2-row)
41% 2-row
5.75% C60
5.75% Special Roast
4% Carapils
2.5% Melanoidin

Use the EKG and Fuggles

I would target 30 - 40 IBU depending on your type of amber (malty, hoppy)

15-20 at 60m (Fuggle)
15-20 at 20m (EKG)
maybe 1oz at flameout (EKG)
and 1oz dryhop (EKG)

depending on what you are looking for

 

[Morrey]

I would go for a 1.050 - 1.054 OG
Mash at 152°

This will be on the lighter end of an amber without any c120 or a dehusked black malt. If you have it I would color with some dehusked malt during the sparge or at the end of mash. If you have 120 I might go 50/50 with the c60.


41% MO (or use your full 5# and take it out of the 2-row)
41% 2-row
5.75% C60
5.75% Special Roast
4% Carapils
2.5% Melanoidin

Use the EKG and Fuggles

I would target 30 - 40 IBU depending on your type of amber (malty, hoppy)

15-20 at 60m (Fuggle)
15-20 at 20m (EKG)
maybe 1oz at flameout (EKG)
and 1oz dryhop (EKG)

depending on what you are looking for

I have a pound of black patent if you feel a splash would add richness/depth in the color?

EDIT: I found a pound of Black Prinz which will be a choice as well. I'll play with this in BS and see what kind of colors and IBU's we come up with.

 

[jekeane]

I have a pound of black patent if you feel a splash would add richness/depth in the color?

EDIT: I found a pound of Black Prinz which will be a choice as well. I'll play with this in BS and see what kind of colors and IBU's we come up with.

I would just toss in like 2oz if you want the color in official amber range. I always think in terms of competitions is the only reason I consider the Srm. It’s not particularly important otherwise.

 

[Morrey]

I would just toss in like 2oz if you want the color in official amber range. I always think in terms of competitions is the only reason I consider the Srm. It’s not particularly important otherwise.

One of the things I like about Beer Smith is that it gives the user a range of the important values that define a style and allows designing a recipe that stays within those parameters. Even if I have no thoughts of placing a beer into a contest to be judged, I tend to like to stick to a style. I guess this is a purist attitude but it keeps things clean.

 

[rhys333]

Wife asked for an amber type of ale, and based on her tastes, she likes a mildy-malty British ale that doesn't rock your socks off with hops. I'll say "balanced" is the keyword.

Its time for me to do some ingredient cleaning with some odd bits and pieces to use w/o having to go buy anything:

5.5G batch, and the ingredients I listed I feel would be ok in an ale as discussed

For yeast I have S-04

For grains I have 5# Marris Otter
Lots of pils and 2 row
plenty of Carapils
2# Special Roast
and assorted amounts of C20, 40 and 60 and some melanoidin if needed

For hops I have plenty of Fuggles
1 oz Bullion
4 oz EK Goldings
2 oz Celeia Goldings

If anyone can help me cobble together a recipe for a decent British style amber ale, I'll plug into BS and dial in my numbers.

Thanks!!

It sounds like you're going for something along the lines of a Best Bitter. I might try 92% MO, 6% C60 and 2% black patent for colour. Maybe a little special roast too. Then hopping to around 28 IBU or so.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

If anyone can help me cobble together a recipe for a decent British style amber ale, I'll plug into BS and dial in my numbers.

First just to be clear - what exactly do you think you're asking for with a "British style amber ale"? I'm not trying to be funny but in Britain, "amber ale" is a foreign style, it's a brown beer that's generally stronger than the typical British equivalent, often contains some rye and hopped with New World hops. If you mean a traditional bitter, Best or ESB, then each of those takes you in a slightly different direction....

But for me, the greatest expression of trad British beer is a Best of 4.2-4.4% - it's really rare to see cask ales going over 4.5%, although there are more of them now thanks to the US influence. You've got a pretty good attenuator in S-04 so you want to be aiming for an og of 1.042-1.044.

Personally I'd go for a more Yorkshire style, which means more dry bitterness so up the sulphate in the water. In what follows you may want to drop the hops a bit and up the speciality malts a little bit (but not over 10% total), but this is what I'd make given your inventory :

5% C60 + 2% melanoidin.
5% torrified wheat for head retention if you're being properly Northern about it.
Colour with caramel
Use all your Otter and then make up to 1.044 with 2-row.

Personally I'd aim for BU:GU of 0.85 (ie 37 IBU) but it sounds like you were thinking of something more like 0.75 (33 IBU). Personally I wouldn't particularly want to waste any of the hops you mention on bittering - do you have some other bittering hops kicking around? What vintage are the hops? 2015 was great, but 2016 was pretty lousy and 2017 isn't really to my taste, so vintages matter. I'm not the greatest fan of Fuggles but I love Goldings, and if there's one thing better than 100% EKG it's EKG cut with just a bit of blackcurrant from Bullion or Bramling Cross. So I'd go for

(bittering charge to get total alpha up to 37 IBU)
10 min 1oz EKG
0 min 1oz EKG + 1oz Bullion
Maybe another ounce of Fuggles towards the end of the boil if you fancy it
Dry hop at 1.015 sg (flexible) 1oz Fuggles or Celeia (like all Slovenian hops, it's not a real Golding)

Pitch at 60F or so, and let it free rise but don't let S-04 go above 66F or it starts throwing out lactic acid. Give it time at ~55F to condition properly - it can take a couple of months for them to be at their best.

 

[Morrey]

First just to be clear - what exactly do you think you're asking for with a "British style amber ale"? I'm not trying to be funny but in Britain, "amber ale" is a foreign style, it's a brown beer that's generally stronger than the typical British equivalent, often contains some rye and hopped with New World hops. If you mean a traditional bitter, Best or ESB, then each of those takes you in a slightly different direction....

But for me, the greatest expression of trad British beer is a Best of 4.2-4.4% - it's really rare to see cask ales going over 4.5%, although there are more of them now thanks to the US influence. You've got a pretty good attenuator in S-04 so you want to be aiming for an og of 1.042-1.044.

Personally I'd go for a more Yorkshire style, which means more dry bitterness so up the sulphate in the water. In what follows you may want to drop the hops a bit and up the speciality malts a little bit (but not over 10% total), but this is what I'd make given your inventory :

5% C60 + 2% melanoidin.
5% torrified wheat for head retention if you're being properly Northern about it.
Colour with caramel
Use all your Otter and then make up to 1.044 with 2-row.

Personally I'd aim for BU:GU of 0.85 (ie 37 IBU) but it sounds like you were thinking of something more like 0.75 (33 IBU). Personally I wouldn't particularly want to waste any of the hops you mention on bittering - do you have some other bittering hops kicking around? What vintage are the hops? 2015 was great, but 2016 was pretty lousy and 2017 isn't really to my taste, so vintages matter. I'm not the greatest fan of Fuggles but I love Goldings, and if there's one thing better than 100% EKG it's EKG cut with just a bit of blackcurrant from Bullion or Bramling Cross. So I'd go for

(bittering charge to get total alpha up to 37 IBU)
10 min 1oz EKG
0 min 1oz EKG + 1oz Bullion
Maybe another ounce of Fuggles towards the end of the boil if you fancy it
Dry hop at 1.015 sg (flexible) 1oz Fuggles or Celeia (like all Slovenian hops, it's not a real Golding)

Pitch at 60F or so, and let it free rise but don't let S-04 go above 66F or it starts throwing out lactic acid. Give it time at ~55F to condition properly - it can take a couple of months for them to be at their best.

Awesome....thanks for your input. As I gathered my thoughts, I was using Beer Smith to stay within BJCP style 8B English Pale Ale aka Special/Best/Premium Bitter. Many of my Yakima Valley hops are 2015 that I vacuum sealed and froze in smaller packets. I honestly cant see that I have lost much vitality from these hops due to age since I sealed carefully and froze. I know in 2016 the AA% of most hops took a nose dive and went almost in half over the previous year.

Yes, I have other hops for bittering, in fact I often use CTZ bittering extracts for my first wort hop bittering addition. I really liked the idea of using that Bullion I have which is really a pretty nice hop many folks overlook. BTW, I have no problem hitting 37 IBU's, and given I'll up my SO4 ratio (I usually do this anyway), all should turn out beautifully crisp and dry.

And I totally realize I need to be aware of the beer names and nomenclature before asking questions. Otherwise, it would be like walking into a pub and saying I'd like a pint please. A pint of what? I don't know...LOL.

One last question....I have flaked wheat I use for body and head retention: will this be ok in lieu of torrified wheat?​

 

[Northern_Brewer]

It's now 11B. Even vacuum-sealed and cold you will still be losing 10-20% per year, but for British hops at least, 2015 is a much better starting point. If that's when your Fuggles are from then I would consider using them!

CTZ FWH would be fine - if you wanted to be really authentic you'd use Admiral as the modern British high-alpha hop or something classic like the Challenger/Northdown/Target combo used by Fuller's. But CTZ will be just fine.

As far as those 37IBU go - make this beer for your wife, not for me! There's plenty of British beer that might better fit a definition of "mildy-malty British ale that doesn't rock your socks off with hops" - there's plenty that go into the 20's, it's just hard to know what different people mean by "mildy-malty". The kind of northern bitter I'm thinking of would probably fail that test, at least by British standards.

Flaked wheat does the same job as torrified wheat, but is somewhat more neutral in taste, think of it as US 2-row to torrified's Otter. But at 5% the flavour impact is negligible, so flaked will be fine.

 

[Morrey]

Very informative and helpful, indeed. ^^