Brewing British real ale in California

[warx]

Hi all,

Being a transplant here from the UK 30 years ago I've been pining for real ale and it was easies to just brew it! Best Bitters, ESBs, Milds, Strong Ales etc. Just finished my 5th batch so just starting out. I have a 10.5gal Anvil, ferment in buckets, and then condition in torpedo (corny) kegs with a CO2 aspirator to make it last a while. I use RV-style rocket hand pumps (not sure I can fit two beer engines on my keezer)

Hoping to find other real ale brewers and share recipes for some old classics.

Cheers!
Mike.

 

[cyberbackpacker]

Welcome! I love brewing real ale and many others around here do too.

If you have not yet discovered it, head to Ron Pattinson's blog. He is a beer historian researcher, primarily on UK beers (but also some on German too). His "Let's Brew Wednesday" posts have lots of great historic recipes straight from the brewing logs/records of actual UK Breweries. He has recipes from the 18th century through to the early 80s!

Cheers

 

[brewbama]

I *want* to brew real ale. I am good up to dispense but that where it goes south using CO2 to push naturally carbonated beer. I use corny kegs and need to investigate converting over. What do I need?

 

[jrgtr42]

I *want* to brew real ale. I am good up to dispense but that where it goes south using CO2 to push naturally carbonated beer. I use corny kegs and need to investigate converting over. What do I need?

That's the hard part, because as everyone knows, traditional cask ale is gravity or pump dispensed, with air allowed in to replace the volume. Air (oxygen|) doesn't work with beer, so unless you can knock off 5 gallons in 3 or 4 days, it's going to go bad.
There are CO2 breathers, that basically inject 1 atmosphere CO2 in to replace the volume instead, but it's not TRADITIONAL, though it'll let the beer last longer. Still not as long as a real, pressurized keg, though

 

[brewbama]

According to a conversation I had with Kegland on the Aussie HomeBrew site, they said they are developing a liner insert for corny kegs that would allow CO2 to squeeze the bag without adding CO2 or O2 to the beer but I’ve not seen any updates. There is a product called bag in a box that does this but I am already knee deep into my corny setup that I’d like to continue down that road.

while I have begun brewing 3.5 gal batches, that’s still a tall order for me to consume quickly.

 

[DuncB]

Kegland have been " developing " that bag idea for a while. Bag in a box is basically gravity and will keep the air out without needing to put CO2 in as they collapse. As mentioned above cask ale really needs to get air on it once opened. You could transfer to smaller vessels ( such as 4 litre kegs or 1 gallon water containers ) from the corny keg and then just crack the smaller keg open to let air in and serve from your engine. Cask ale should be about 12 celsius in the cellar.
English ales whats your favourite recipe worth reading on this thread, will keep you going for a while.
Craft beer channel on you tube has done some good stuff " keep cask alive series worth a look " they have some other good videos.
Cask ale is a living beast wheras keg beer is in a hypothermic oxygen deprived coma.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Or as Jeff Alworth put it :
Where the British tradition still survives is cask ale (usually but not entirely in the form of bitter), and it is the most “crafted” beer style made anywhere. If we ever wanted to exalt a beer type that requires the most hands fussing over it, a beer resistant to making at large scale, one that can’t really be put in a bottle, one that is as likely to wilt from environmental conditions as freshly-plucked lettuce, it is cask ale. When you’re served a pint at the right temperature, poured properly, that is perfectly fresh and well-handled, it’s a marvel of coordination. There’s a reason Americans picked the bones of British brewing while leaving its cask soul behind: it’s just too hard to make.

He's also written up a recent crawl of 8 cask beers across 4 breweries in Portland :
https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2022/3/7/cask-ale-surging-in-america

 

[warx]

Thanks all!

So far I've brewed clones of TT Landlord, JW Lees Bitter, SH Dark Ruby Mild, and just "casked" a Black Sheep. Landlord was in bags - but I need to try this again now I've brewed more. I use a CO2 regulator and then a propane regulator but I ordered a aspirator from RLBS. My mini pumps (Alterra Rocket RV) work surprisingly well and I'm happy with them - especially since I have two and thinking about another two. I do think though that after 3 weeks or so even with just CO2 at 0.4psi the beer is past its best so maybe better to just have one or two tapped at a time.

 

[warx]

7cu.ft freezer, collar, two pumps with silicone hose with homemade sparklers. Only 1.5oz per pump but pretty compact. The dark ruby mild does not use the sparkler.

 

[schmurf]

I've got one these breathers/aspirator-valves from RLBS connected to my keg and it seems to be working just great. Previously I had CO2 connected with a minimal pressure but it was difficult to adjust and I sometimes could experience some kind of suck back after I pulled the hand pull. With the breather it runs very smoothly.

A big shout-out to RLBS customer service, there was a problem with mine when I received it, but they sent me instructions how to fix it AND a full repayment of the purchase.

 

[warx]

Trying to brew a Doom Bar thing this week. I've never had it (left the UK in 1994) but has been requested from my cask-ale club here in Tiburon, CA. It looks like it gets mixed responses - as mixed as the recipe arguments for it too. Oh well I'll take a gamble!
Then I want to try an English IPA (to woo a few IPA folks here to cask ales) and thinking about a Proper Job clone.

 

[ba-brewer]

My mini pumps (Alterra Rocket RV) work surprisingly well and I'm happy with them - especially since I have two and thinking about another two.

I have one of those pumps and only played with it a little but it seems like there is quite a bit of beer sitting up near the pump in a reservoir. Do you purge that left over beer in the reservoir at the end of a session or just leave it ?

 

[warx]

I have one of those pumps and only played with it a little but it seems like there is quite a bit of beer sitting up near the pump in a reservoir. Do you purge that left over beer in the reservoir at the end of a session or just leave it ?

My pump's bodies are mostly contained inside the keezer so the beer is the same temp as the kegs so I drink it! The whole thing is only 1oz per pump so pulling 16oz (or 20oz if I could find real pint glasses here) it gets pretty diluted also.

 

[ba-brewer]

My pump's bodies are mostly contained inside the keezer so the beer is the same temp as the kegs so I drink it! The whole thing is only 1oz per pump so pulling 16oz (or 20oz if I could find real pint glasses here) it gets pretty diluted also.

Thanks for clarifying, I was thinking your pumps were surface mounted, having them exposed to the cool of the keezer is a good idea. It seemed like mine had more than an ounce, I will have to play around it with again.

 

[DuncB]

@warx
Doom Bar Looks like an amber ale according to the website, not sure of the hops, tis a good pint though.
Proper job is a great ipa ( or was ) for it's time it really stood out. Clone brews has plenty of English IPA recipes, can't go wrong with Shepherd Neame.