angryyoungman
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- May 2, 2013
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I'm very interested in brewing some session beers, so I've been looking at Scottish 60, and English milds. I just recently did a partigyle, American ordinary bitter out of a barley wine grain bill... Probably the best beer I've made so far, and it was a complete spur of the moment brew where I just threw in whatever random hops I had left. Best part is, at 3% I can keep 'em coming without ending up fat and farty or on the floor.
So that's the background to my recent interest in session brews. Now when I think session beers I think 3.5% and lower, so I was pretty surprised when I started seeing some Scottish 60 recipes at 4.5%. I also was surprised when I saw an article about how the Scottish 60 is actually quite dark in Scotland, like porter dark, and the BJCP just has the style wrong. To me, it makes sense, if the beer is taxed by alcohol, which is where the shilling denotation comes from, then you throw in some darker, roasted grains that have low fermentables to keep ABV low while retaining a decent flavor and body. It's the same story that led to the Irish stout really. Anyway, I checked the BJCP guidelines and sure enough, SRM is 9-17. But when you look at "examples of the style" it says they're all cask ales and are not imported to America. Besides that being a damn shame, that means what Americans think of as a Scottish 60 could be vastly wrong because most of us have never had one! I think I'm going to completely ignore the style guidelines on this one actually and just do what I want.
Any thoughts on here? Any adventurers who have been to Scotland who can confirm or deny the above?
So that's the background to my recent interest in session brews. Now when I think session beers I think 3.5% and lower, so I was pretty surprised when I started seeing some Scottish 60 recipes at 4.5%. I also was surprised when I saw an article about how the Scottish 60 is actually quite dark in Scotland, like porter dark, and the BJCP just has the style wrong. To me, it makes sense, if the beer is taxed by alcohol, which is where the shilling denotation comes from, then you throw in some darker, roasted grains that have low fermentables to keep ABV low while retaining a decent flavor and body. It's the same story that led to the Irish stout really. Anyway, I checked the BJCP guidelines and sure enough, SRM is 9-17. But when you look at "examples of the style" it says they're all cask ales and are not imported to America. Besides that being a damn shame, that means what Americans think of as a Scottish 60 could be vastly wrong because most of us have never had one! I think I'm going to completely ignore the style guidelines on this one actually and just do what I want.
Any thoughts on here? Any adventurers who have been to Scotland who can confirm or deny the above?