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Englisch Pale Ale - Tips and Advice

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Thanks much, everyone ~ I think we're ready to go with this!

My current plan is to order the ingredients on Friday, and hopefully brew sometime during the week of 19-25 March.

I'm very appreciative to all who have helped with this, and I hope that the results will do justice to the tradition.
 
Alright, this really is the final version, and I think it should be pretty good ~

Englisch
Pale Ale

By TasunkaWitko

1 gallon

OG - 1.053
FG - 1.012
ABV - 5.37%
IBUs - 35.90
SRM - 8.28


Fermentables

1.9 lb Maris Otter (94.9%)
0.1 lb Carastan 30/37L (4.9%
0.05 oz. (1.42g) Simpson's Black Patent (0.2%)


60-Minute Mash @ 150 degrees

60-Minute Boil


Hops

6g Fuggle hops (5.9% AA) @ 60 minutes
5g Fuggle hops (5.9% AA) @ 15 minutes


Yeast

Safale S-04


Dry Hop

2g Fuggle Hops (5.9% AA) for up to 7 days after 7 days in primar

The dry-hopping schedule is just a guess - I've never dry-hopped before! If there is any flaw in it, let me know and I will modify it.

My plan is to order any needed ingredients this coming Friday, and then brew this beer sometime during the week of 19-25 March.

That's it for now...we'll see how it goes!
 
You should check out "Brewing Classic Styles" by Zainasheff/Palmer. It's a comprehensive guide to brewing beers of just about every style. It's fun to read too.

I'm curious, are you using a brewing calculator and if so, which one? I'm asking because I'm getting slightly different numbers than yours, mostly in the SRM and IBU departments.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/464832/strong-bitter
 
Hi, Gerry, and thanks - I probably will look into that book, once I've brewed my way through this one. Learning those styles seems to be a great way to pick up a lot of fundamentals. I've picked up a ton of information just on this first pale ale project, both on the English and American side.

I did use Brewer's Friend as well, in the form of an app on my iPod. My IBU setting is on "Tinseth" and my SRM setting is on SRM Morey. One thing is that my original recipe is just slightly different from my final one, so that might account for the different numbers?

A couple of other details: Adding that tiny touch of UK Black Patent did bring the colour up...right where it needs to be, I think. Also, the package on my Fuggle hops at home reads 5.9% AAs, instead of whatever the default is on the app.
EDIT - mystery solved, I think...see below! :mug:
 
Gerry - I just noticed that your IBU and SRM settings are the same as the ones I'm using, so I'm not sure what the difference is.

One thng - I've noticed that when I switch a lot of things around in Brewer's Friend, it sometimes gives readings that are a tiny little off. I'll re-enter everything, and see what I get. Also, my boil volume is set at 1.25 gallons, since that seems to be about the average for when I brew.
 
Gerry - one more thing - I lowered my mash temperature to 150, rather than 152. I forgot to correct that in my "final version." Will do so, now.
 
Gerry - final thing (I think) - It should be .05 OUNCES of Black Patent, not .05 pounds. That might account for the differences, as well.
 
Alright, this really is the final version, and I think it should be pretty good ~



The dry-hopping schedule is just a guess - I've never dry-hopped before! If there is any flaw in it, let me know and I will modify it.

My plan is to order any needed ingredients this coming Friday, and then brew this beer sometime during the week of 19-25 March.

That's it for now...we'll see how it goes!

I would not touch it now. It's set to go and looks good. Everything about it seems like a recognisable beer at this side of the pond. I'd just crack on with it and if there is anything you don't like it's something you can address in a couple of months time. As it is now it will be spot on on the style.
 
Awesome -

Many, many thanks, JK - For me, a lot of it is about learning the traditions and doing it so it would definitely be "plausible" where originally done. I'll go right with this, and I'm guessing that I will like it - that Maris Otter is very hard to beat, and the Fuggle hop is right among those at the very top of my list - what's not to like?
 
Gerry - final thing (I think) - It should be .05 OUNCES of Black Patent, not .05 pounds. That might account for the differences, as well.

The differences aren't a big deal, the recipe looks good. Then again, I thought your original version was fine the way it was too!
Note that Timothy Taylor Landlord's malt bill is 100% Golden Promise. I made a SMASH version with that, 100% Styrian Goldings, and Wyeast 1469, and I was very happy with it. It just goes to show you that even the simplest recipes can make good beer. :mug:
 
One consideration - your grain supplier may not be able to measure out 0.05 ounces of the Black Patent as many grain scales read out in 0.1 ounce increments. If they can't weigh out such a small amount, just buy a larger amount, e.g 0.2 ounces, spread the grain out on a plate and visually divide the grain in half, then in half again to get 0.05 ounces.

TomVA
 
Hi, Gerry, and thanks - I probably will look into that book, once I've brewed my way through this one. Learning those styles seems to be a great way to pick up a lot of fundamentals. I've picked up a ton of information just on this first pale ale project, both on the English and American side.

I did use Brewer's Friend as well, in the form of an app on my iPod. My IBU setting is on "Tinseth" and my SRM setting is on SRM Morey. One thing is that my original recipe is just slightly different from my final one, so that might account for the different numbers?

A couple of other details: Adding that tiny touch of UK Black Patent did bring the colour up...right where it needs to be, I think. Also, the package on my Fuggle hops at home reads 5.9% AAs, instead of whatever the default is on the app.
EDIT - mystery solved, I think...see below! :mug:

Yep, I think we've solved the mystery. In the past, I've gotten different numbers with the Brewer's Friend Android app than I got with the web-based calculator. I only use the web-based one now, it's always spot-on for me.
 
Gerry - agreed, very much, about simple being a great way to go. That's one of the reasons I'm starting these "basic" versions of a lot of common styles. See opening post for the link to the book that I'm trying. It's worth taking a look at.

Tom - good point! My #2 son is quite fond of stouts and other dark beers, so he asked me to go ahead and order a full pound of the Black Patent.
 
I have some electric scales that I use for measuring stuff like brewing salts, lactic acid and hop additions. They go down to 0.1 grams, so it's easy to measure 1/20oz. I think their upper limit is about a pound. Similar scales sound like a must have for one gallon brewing...
 
The mini-mart down the street sells those scales. They're in the glass case by these pretty glass pipes with the sign that says "tobacco use only".
They're cheaper on Amazon though. ;)
 
We're going to be in Great Falls next week (a metropolis, compared to my town), and I will be looking for a chance to try 2 or 3 beers of this style, in order to actually see what I should be looking for. I do believe that will help more than any reading I could possibly do.


Ron, if you can't find any in great falls let me know, I'm positive I can find some here in the beer Mecca that is Portland to send you. I still owe you for the FOTW books you sent me.
 
Hi, Mike - I might take you up on that, after our journey to Great Falls. They have a really good selection there, but I simply have 3 or 4 favourites that I always get, so I've never browsed around as much as I probably should.

I placed my order for the ingredients to brew this beer on Friday - I am expecting to brew this sometime during the week of 19-25 March.

Now, time to choose an image for the label! :eek:
 
I stopped at a shop in Great Falls that "specializes" in bringing in beers from "all over." The selection was pretty good for some beers, but possibly lacking in others. For English styles, I was able to find a lot of stouts, porters and some more exotic selections; however, when it comes to "pale ales" or "bitters," I was only able to find Bass, which is advertised here as "The World's First Pale Ale." I bought a couple of bottles of it and will give it a try this coming weekend, most likely, in order to see what I'm getting into.
 
That's odd, isn't it? It's like being able to find Berliner Weisse, several German IPAs, wheat beers, dopplebocks, weizenbocks, kotbusser, but not a single helles and just one commercial pilsner :-D
 
A quick note on this -

I was recently able to try a bottle of Bass, which is advertised as "the world's first pale ale." My understanding is that it is no longer brewed in the UK, but it is "supposed" to be brewed using the original recipe.

I'm not sure if it is a good example that is representative of the English Pale Ale, but it sure tasted very, very good. If my efforts result in something that is similar, I will be very happy and would consider the project a success.

If I get the chance, I'll continue to try examples of this beer as I find them.

I am set to brew two batches of Grapefruit Honey Ale for a friend - after that, I plan to give this a go.
 
Yeah, well - life, summer and other assorted things got in the way; however, I am getting back into the brewing groove within a week or so, and will get this one moving.

In the interim, I picked up Ron Pattinson's book on brewing vintage British beers; I plan to spend the weekend reading the section that would be relevant here, which might give me a few ideas. For now, my most recently-posted recipe is my current plan; if that changes, I'll post about it here.

Ron
 
Based on a lot of advice here and my reading in Pattinson's book, I placed an order for a 454 gram (1-pound) tin of Lyle's Golden invert sugar. I might not sue it for this brew, but I will certainly give it a shot in future brews.

If I do use it for this brew, does anyone have any advice where it is concerned? Should I add it to the existing fermentables, or make some adjustments? For reference, here they are:


1.9 lb Maris Otter (94.9%)
0.1 lb Carastan 30/37L (4.9%
0.05 oz. (1.42g) Simpson's Black Patent (0.2%)

Or should I just wait until another brew, and go with what I have?

Thanks in advance -

Ron
 
Englisch
Pale Ale

By TasunkaWitko

1 gallon

OG - 1.053
FG - 1.012
ABV - 5.37%
IBUs - 35.90
SRM - 8.28


Fermentables

1.9 lb Maris Otter (94.9%)
0.1 lb Carastan 30/37L (4.9%
0.05 oz. (1.42g) Simpson's Black Patent (0.2%)


60-Minute Mash @ 150 degrees

60-Minute Boil


Hops

6g Fuggle hops (5.9% AA) @ 60 minutes
5g Fuggle hops (5.9% AA) @ 15 minutes


Yeast

Safale S-04


Dry Hop

2g Fuggle Hops (5.9% AA) for up to 7 days after 7 days in primary

I assume this is the current recipe? My main comment would be that 5.37% is way too strong - you're worrying about a gram of malt to get the colour right but the ABV is simply way out. If you're interested in tradition then >95% of British bitter is under 4.5% and a majority of that is 4% or less. But a best of around 4.2% is probably the first place I'd aim for.

35IBU is on the high side - fine for a northern bitter (my preferred style, you may not be surprised to learn :) ) but a bit high for a southern one which tends to be a bit more malt led.

Whilst a Fuggles/Goldings mix is a classic one, I'm a big fan of Bramling Cross, it's a nice one to have as a late kettle addition but obviously if you're only doing one gallon then you don't want to go too mad on buying hops. We talked a bit about hops over in another thread - I'd also emphasise the point about 2016 being a poor vintage for hops, and at this time of year any hops that haven't been stored in perfect conditions will be feeling pretty tired. So you might want to up your numbers if you're not sure about your hops - or wait for the new season hops which should be coming soon (they're mostly harvested by now, it's just a question of them getting into the supply chain).

A lot of the adjuncts you see in recipes aren't particularly "classic" - they just reflect industrial breweries trying to make cheap beer. Like rice in US lagers, they kind of take on a life of their own as being part of a style, but they're not essential. And I wouldn't sweat the colour too much -Boddingtons bitter is almost the colour of lager, historically it was always an outlier but golden ales are now pretty much an essential part of a British bar. I'm not saying you should brew a golden ale, but Maris Otter or Golden Promise, plus some crystal, will make a perfectly respectable British bitter. I'd be tempted to add a little torrified wheat (like 5%) if you can, but again I wouldn't sweat it - there's a whole quasi-religious debate about the nature of head on British beers, but let's not go there!

As for Bass - one of the most bizarre decisions in an incredible story of brand destruction was to advertise it as the first trademark in Britain. But then that's what you get from ABInbev. It wasn't the first pale ale, by about 200 years, but the red triangle was the first trademark registered. Since the brewery got sold off (eventually ending up with Molson Coors) it's been brewed in various places - cask for the UK is contracted out to Marstons, AB brew the bottled version in the old Whitbread lager factory north of Manchester, but I think they still brew for the US market in New York state (and it's also brewed in Belgium for their local market). The general conclusion is that cask Bass isn't quite what it used to be but can be superb if fresh and kept by someone who knows their trade, it very quickly turns dull though - finding good Bass is something of a quest among a certain type of CAMRA member - but the bottles tend to capture all of the dullness and none of the greatness. I can't imagine what it must be like brewed in the US. ABI have pretty much killed it as a brand and as a beer in the UK, you really seldom see it except in supermarkets. But at least it gives you some idea of what you're aiming for.
 
Northern (and OP, I hope this is germane and helpful), but I hate using adjuncts in any beer. That said, I'm trying to loosen my tightness and allegiance to some ideal. So all this below is new territory for me.

Anyway. Flaked maize and my own "Invert No. 1" for a best bitter; Again, my own No. 2 and Munich at a healthy dose (12.8%) for a strong bitter. The Munich is something I picked up from a brewer I worked with years ago.

Thoughts?
 
I assume this is the current recipe? My main comment would be that 5.37% is way too strong - you're worrying about a gram of malt to get the colour right but the ABV is simply way out. If you're interested in tradition then >95% of British bitter is under 4.5% and a majority of that is 4% or less. But a best of around 4.2% is probably the first place I'd aim for.

35IBU is on the high side - fine for a northern bitter (my preferred style, you may not be surprised to learn :) ) but a bit high for a southern one which tends to be a bit more malt led.

Whilst a Fuggles/Goldings mix is a classic one, I'm a big fan of Bramling Cross, it's a nice one to have as a late kettle addition but obviously if you're only doing one gallon then you don't want to go too mad on buying hops. We talked a bit about hops over in another thread - I'd also emphasise the point about 2016 being a poor vintage for hops, and at this time of year any hops that haven't been stored in perfect conditions will be feeling pretty tired. So you might want to up your numbers if you're not sure about your hops - or wait for the new season hops which should be coming soon (they're mostly harvested by now, it's just a question of them getting into the supply chain).

A lot of the adjuncts you see in recipes aren't particularly "classic" - they just reflect industrial breweries trying to make cheap beer. Like rice in US lagers, they kind of take on a life of their own as being part of a style, but they're not essential. And I wouldn't sweat the colour too much -Boddingtons bitter is almost the colour of lager, historically it was always an outlier but golden ales are now pretty much an essential part of a British bar. I'm not saying you should brew a golden ale, but Maris Otter or Golden Promise, plus some crystal, will make a perfectly respectable British bitter. I'd be tempted to add a little torrified wheat (like 5%) if you can, but again I wouldn't sweat it - there's a whole quasi-religious debate about the nature of head on British beers, but let's not go there!

As for Bass - one of the most bizarre decisions in an incredible story of brand destruction was to advertise it as the first trademark in Britain. But then that's what you get from ABInbev. It wasn't the first pale ale, by about 200 years, but the red triangle was the first trademark registered. Since the brewery got sold off (eventually ending up with Molson Coors) it's been brewed in various places - cask for the UK is contracted out to Marstons, AB brew the bottled version in the old Whitbread lager factory north of Manchester, but I think they still brew for the US market in New York state (and it's also brewed in Belgium for their local market). The general conclusion is that cask Bass isn't quite what it used to be but can be superb if fresh and kept by someone who knows their trade, it very quickly turns dull though - finding good Bass is something of a quest among a certain type of CAMRA member - but the bottles tend to capture all of the dullness and none of the greatness. I can't imagine what it must be like brewed in the US. ABI have pretty much killed it as a brand and as a beer in the UK, you really seldom see it except in supermarkets. But at least it gives you some idea of what you're aiming for.

Boddingtons was an awesome beer when it first came out but latterly it went to the dogs. I cannot say why. I tried to brew a clone recipe but it wasn't a patch on the original. Timothy Taylor is quite a good beer to try to emulate, some pale malt, some light crystal maybe and Golding and Styrian Bobek hops. I actually did an experiment and bought famous supermarket beers. Timothy Taylor was the only one which managed to keep a head.
 
Isn't Timothy Taylor 100% Golden Promise? Or am I thinking of another one?

It is claimed that it uses 100% Golden promise but if you actually look at it, it has deep amber tints like a Vienna lager. Having brewed it at home numerous times I can verify that you do not get this amber tint by using 100% Golden Promise, nor by using a small amount of black patent malt which is sometimes suggested in recipes. What TT actually use I cannot say but to my mind if you want to emulate it you definitely need Golden Promise AND some kind of caramalt or light crystal malt. You cannot actually taste any crystal in the product though so it could be a product of the brewing process like melanoidin reactions, I do not know. These are difficult for the homebrewer to get from the process and probably we need to use some kind of caramalt. If anyone knows how to achieve the colour without impacting much on flavour I would be really interested to hear it.
 
@Gadjobrinus - you're kinda conflating two traditions. When beer taxation was done via a tax on malt in the 19th century, the premium brands made a point of avoiding adjuncts but in the north they added sugar and in the south they added maize and rice. It's consistent with their overall plans - Burton was brewing for export and so wanted high attenuation to improve stability during transport (which meant low-floc yeast which led to the Burton Union), London breweries were brewing for their local market so wanted floccy yeast for ease of dispense so ended up with higher attenuation and a fuller mouthfeel. So I'd tend to go with either sugar or maize/rice, but not both. Of course it all went pear-shaped thanks to Lloyd George in WWI and breweries were forced to use adjuncts in the name of the war effort, and British beer never really recovered. But there was lobbying for a Reinheitsgebot in the late 19th century.

Personally I don't use adjuncts and I don't think I would unless I was trying to recreate specific historical beers or it's really essential to the style like a tripel. But I don't think they're really necessary for ordinary British styles for home drinking.

@MSK_Chess The Boddies story is controversial but the fact that the big change seems to have happened in late 1981 or 1982 at the height of the deindustrialisation of their homeland, suggests that money was a factor. There's also been a suggestion that they "lost" their original multistrain yeast at around this time. Wyeast 1318 London Ale III gets referred to as a Boddies yeast but supposedly originated at Courage, hence the Wyeast designation - I don't know if that means they replaced their original strain with one from Courage or whether it was just one sourced from their library.

Ron Pattinson has published an original recipe for 1987 Boddies which uses 34.2g of Goldings in 23l (and just 13g of No 1 in an otherwise all-malt brew)- apparently they were using 3-year-old hops, I'm not sure whether that recipe allows for that or not but they would have been a)pretty dead by then but b) cheap - it's a long way from how bitter Boddies was in the 1970s. The only other beers I've heard using hops that old are some of the lambics.

Most of the recipes I've seen for Landlord (TT do make other beers!) seem to be based on the Graham Wheeler book which seem to be the source of the 20-30g black malt and the rest pale, although other recipes use a bit of 120 crystal as well. I know that certainly 20 years ago TT were still using Proctor which was the main English spring barley (and a parent of Maris Otter, which was bred to combine the quality of Proctor with the farmer-friendliness of winter barley) so I can see why Golden Promise is often mentioned. Certainly wouldn't surprise me if some of the colour came from caramelisation in the kettle.

They do seem to be pretty strict about only using Goldings, Fuggles and Styrian Goldings (which despite the name is just Fuggles grown in Slovenia), they're pretty old school in general. And of course you have to use 1469 yeast....
 
Fascinating, thanks so much, Northern. Truthfully I'm going blind here, as I've never used maize nor sugar. It actually goes against the grain for me, but I'm trying to explore what I thought anyway, were some of the historical sources of the bitters I've loved.

I just checked and I think it must have been Wheeler's book - I love Hook Norton and he's got their beers with both sugar and maize. Not sure if the Real Ale Almanac also lists any, but I do love Hook Norton so it's probably that. At any rate I'll rethink my current thoughts and really appreciate you providing the historical perspective.
 
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