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Hi Womble, good to see you here. 👍🏼

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Are you in the Pennines? I'm on the edge.

English ales aren't uniformly crisp, not on England anyway. But maybe there's a tendency on your side of the pond to go too heavy on the malt, I see malt heavy recipes quite often. Loads of crystal malt for example. So yes, 85-90% base is good for a lot of English ales, I think. Yeast is...

I agree that Verdant doesn't taste English, which frustrates the hell out of me because the strain started life at the Verdant brewery in England as Wyeast 1318 (London Ale III). 🤦🏻 So near and yet so far. A Lallemand employee once confirmed that four strains they have sold separately all came...

50/50 is fine. Some people delay the Nottingham a day or two to let the Windsor build the flavour. It's a pretty good combo, and they came out of a multi strain yeast from an English brewery, so they do belong together. And Windsor is English, and to me tastes English. English is a variety of...

Pitching both Nottingham and Windsor is recommended by Lallemand and is quite a common practice, apparently. I do it myself. Windsor gives you more English flavour, Nottingham gives you more attenuation and clear beer quicker.

I think the desperation to categorise beers creates problems. I started out drinking Boddingtons bitter in Lancashire in the 70s and not much else. I then went to University in Nottingham and drank bitters that were completely different. Shipstones bitter, Home bitter, Mansfield bitter and...

My experience is the same, I believe it's more about what the maltster does, and I believe recipes should stipulate the maltster and the lovibond or ebc.

I don't think there's a definitive answer to that. It's down to personal taste, and I'm not convinced it matters much, if you have crystal and special roast in there with it. Any English pale malt or similar should be fine in my experience.

They've had a great Harlequin hopped beer in my Spoons recently. 😉

My Wetherspoons has great cask ales. There's an argument against Spoons on the low pricing basis, making it difficult for other cask pubs to compete, but there's an argument in favour, they are very pro cask ale and provide affordable cask ale all over the UK. Where I live a little of pubs and...

The foil idea seems sound to me. It should work. Stick to the plan I say. I've been bottling for years and I did once empty my bottles and rebottle the beer and it was ruined by oxidation, so I wouldn't do that again. If you fit foil tightly over the bottle neck it will protect the beer and the...

Don't forget Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland too. 👍🏼

Ah thanks! That makes sense.... Sounds like a grand beer.

Interesting that you are using Chico yeast (I think?) with English hops, something I steer clear of. May need to try again. Thanks for sharing your recipe. Anything that promotes English hops is very welcome, the hops farms are really struggling here now, with US hops gaining so much traction...

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I have wondered about brewing a beer that people could drink at my funeral! A strong bottled ale that would age well. I don't intend to move on for a while yet.

What is this cask heartland of which you speak? 🤔 First I've heard of it, and I've been drinking cask since the 70s. I don't get around the country so much now but I do get into Lancashire and Yorkshire where cask still seems to be going strong.

It has a whiff of Boddingtons about it, that recipe. I would brew it exactly as it is, just requires a little courage, bdum tish. If I tweaked it at all it would be to replace some of the invert with more base malt but I think first attempt I would trust the recipe. That's me.