Need Help With English Ales

[Mateo]

I have been brewing for nearly 25 years and all of my time I have been brewing German Wheats, German Lagers and Czech Lagers. I decided to expand my brewing and would like to start brewing some English Ales. My gg-grandfather studied brewing in Somerset England back in the mid 1800s and I would like to start brewing some of the traditional ales that are popular for these styles however, I know nothing about them.

Can anyone give me some suggestions of commercial examples that I might find at Total Wine or elsewhere. I am planning on picking up some Fullers ESB and London Pride as I saw the special on Fullers.

I need a good all grain recipe as well. I recall on my last visit to the UK that almost all of the beers seemed to be Bitters. Is this the most common kind?

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

I need a good all grain recipe as well. I recall on my last visit to the UK that almost all of the beers seemed to be Bitters. Is this the most common kind?

Bitter is indeed pretty common, but probably the most common beers are lagers, sadly. I like English Milds myself.

I really enjoyed my Ruddles County Ale clone: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f64/ruddles-county-ale-clone-275243/

Yooper's house Mild is quite tasty too - search for it, I can't seem to find it.

MC

 

[carter840]

Don't know if I can recommend a good beer to try, but I have been using White Labs Burton Ale yeast recently and it has been incredible. I recommend looking into it if your planning on brewing an English ale. It is reliable, gives a nice flavor, only downside is that it leaves beer a little cloudy, but that's acceptable for English ales (at least that's what I've been told).

 

[Revvy]

I'm kinda in a mild/bitters kick as well this week, if you're looking for some English ale recipes to consider brewing, you'll love the recipes in "Shut up about Barclay Perkins." Here's all the recipes setup in the blog's search engine.

 

[ghack]

A few brewing tips:

I've found temperature control is critical with the English yeasts. A few degrees high and strange flavors start kicking in.

Limit crystal and specialty malts to 10-20% max. These beers are about the base malt; Maris Otter is your friend.

Also, resist the urge to hop it like an American Ale. Restraint and balance are key.

 

[bierhaus15]

Sadly, getting good, fresh commerical English beers in the states is nearly impossible. Fullers are ubiquitous, though most bottles are so old and oxidized by the time they get here they aren't very representative of the real stuff. Sam Smiths is a good choice and occasionally you can find a fresh bottle of Young's or Well's bitter.

As for reproducing UK ales, if you are serious about getting something authentic, stick with the best quality UK pale malts (maris otter, halycon, pearl ect...) and specialty grains. I like thomas fawcett, but crisp and simpsons make an excellent product too. Same goes for hops. US goldings wont cut it, use EKG and/or UK fuggles. Lastly, so much of what makes English ales is the yeast. There are many excellent wet strains available now, you can really choose the yeast for the type of flavors you want to get in a particular beer.

 

[MrAverage]

Some commercial examples of pale ale/bitter you might find:

Samuel Smith's Pale Ale
Bass Ale
Spitfire Ale
Old Speckled Hen
Boddington's British Ale (a poor example IMO. As Budweiser is to Pilsner, Boddington's is to Brit. bitter)
Marstons Pedigree
Bluebird Bitter
Well's Bombadier

recipes: There are some "clone" type bookes out there by Grahm Wheeler and Roger Protz (I think there are three editions of essentially the same book each with a slightly different title, the latest being "Brew Your Own British Real Ale " ) Anyway, the recipes are supoosedly based on informatin gathered directly from the breweries and the author's own brewing experiments.

Many of the recipes are available on line at http://www.hopandgrain.com/recipes.aspx

There's also a book called 'The Real Ale Almanc" which lists the ingredients and other info for hundreds of british beers. Many of these have been converetd into useable recipes at this site: http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5022

Alll of this stuff is in metric, but you can convert it easily.

Other good sources of info:

The Barclay Perkins blog as mentioned above
The British Brewer http://www.britishbrewer.com/ (authentic, tested recipes there too)
http://perfectpint.blogspot.com/2011/02/near-perfect-pint-dark-mild-tasting.html# (recipes and good commentary about them)

One thing you'll notice is that most of the authentic British clone recipes call for sugar in one form or another. The majority of American hombrewers seem to be brainwashed into thinking that the use of sugar in any beer except Belgian stuff is a guarantee of crappy beer, but the various sugars that British brewers have used and continue to use are an important part of the flavor and color profiles of "authentic" british beers. Don't be afriad to use them.

Here's a recipe I came up with to clone Ringwood Fortyniner based on the information in the Real Ale Almanac. It came out pretty tasty and it's simple (and it does NOT use any sugar so the sugar snobs will be happy!):

5 gallons, 70% efficiency

OG - 1.049 - 50
FG - 1.013
IBU - 32-33
Color - 10-11 SRM

8.75lb Maris Otter
6 oz Crystal 120
4 oz Torrified Wheat

1/2 oz Challenger pellets - 60 min
3/4 oz Progress pellets - 60 min
1/4 oz East Kent Goldings - 15 min

Yeast - to be authentic you should use a Ringwood strain, but you could also use any British ale strain you like.

You should vary the amount of the bittering hops depending on their AA% so that you get about 30 IBU's from them with the last 2-3 IBUs comig from the late addition of the EKG

 

[commonsenseman]

Try the Common Room ESB, excellent beer.

 

[rexbanner]

Maris Otter, c-60, EKG, english yeast. Those are your tools of the trade. Remember to serve the beer warm, 50 degrees, so the malt flavor comes through. I've made a couple with WLP002, and I would advise fermenting around 62 because the esters come out pretty easily. You can let it rise to 68 on day 3 or 4 to ensure decent attenuation.

 

[homebrewdad]

How can we be having a discussion of English ales without Hobgoblin (Wychwood Brewery) being on the list already?

 

[Revvy]

I thought there was something missing from Mr Average's great post.