English Ale

[Izzie1701]

I am currently visiting England and love there ales. Just cooler then room temp and almost flat. Pumped from the cask and very very little carbonation. Has anyone cloned the Hobgobbler or any bitters (that might I add have a ton of hop flavour but are not bitter and ruby red in color). I would love to make one of these as everything in Canada is very carbonated and the ales here are so refreshing. I have tried flat beer before though and it's nothing like this. It's different. Anyone had any experience?

 

[balrog]

There's a great thread here, regarding English milds, and hobgobblin has clones hither thither and yon if your Google Fu is strong enough.

 

[BarkingSpider]

I was in Scotland & England about 12 years back. Need to get back there! Loved their beers! I've been on a year and half expedition to brew some of what I remember from my experiences in the many pubs...

 

[Hanglow]

For the hoppy ones have a look at golden ale recipes, most now use lots of new world hops. Aim for about 4%, no caramel malts, bit of torrified wheat and low colour marris otter etc. about 35 ibu post fermentation bitterness. lots of late hopping

 

[Izzie1701]

The big thing is the low carbonation. How do you accomplish this with out it tasting like flat beer. The bartender explained to me there was no carbonation just a little air from the pump. But like I said it didn't taste like flat beer like I find our beers do with no carbonation. Just really low priming sugar?

 

[didinho]

The big thing is the low carbonation. How do you accomplish this with out it tasting like flat beer. The bartender explained to me there was no carbonation just a little air from the pump. But like I said it didn't taste like flat beer like I find our beers do with no carbonation. Just really low priming sugar?

yes, low priming sugar is ok: I prime bottles with 2g/liter and they are fine. low carbonation but not flat

 

[jwalk4]

You've been bitten by the real ale bug too, eh? My avitar was taken in a pub underneathe London Bridge.

Closest I have been to recreating the real ale style is to carb with priming sugar in my 3 gallon corney, switch my in and out posts, and serve with the keg tilted upside down. To keep pressure for storing I blast a little co2 from my keg charger (CAMRA, forgive me).

 

[Hanglow]

The big thing is the low carbonation. How do you accomplish this with out it tasting like flat beer. The bartender explained to me there was no carbonation just a little air from the pump. But like I said it didn't taste like flat beer like I find our beers do with no carbonation. Just really low priming sugar?

There is carbonation, typically the beer is racked to cask with two gravity points to drop, then it carbonates in the cask. This works out about 2g to 3g per litre of priming sugar. But it's then vented and can off gas while its being served. Added to that, if the pump has a sparkler (like a shower head at the end of the tap) then it will force out more carbonation but give a creamy head

It's almost impossible to get the same sort of feel if you bottle it, low carbonated bottles just taste a bit flat.

 

[serum]

You've been bitten by the real ale bug too, eh? My avitar was taken in a pub underneathe London Bridge.

Haha that'll be Davy's Mug House! I love that place.

It's really hard to get something that's the same as draft English beer. For recipes try Graham Wheeler's Brew Your Own British Real Ale.

 

[lhommedieu]

Terry Foster''s Pale Ale is a good place to start as well. I haven't brewed ales in a while but my basic recipe was 90% Marris Otter, 10% Crystal 60, Challenger hops for bittering, and either Fuggle or East Kent Goldings hops for aroma. Wyeast 1968 London Ale yeast.

Lately I've given some thought to making an English bitter using the decoction method: the process would thus replace Crystal malt with melanoidin, etc.

 

[Izzie1701]

We are now in Wales and they have an ale called Brains. I am seeing it with nitrogen carbing which is giving it that very creamy head with low carb like Guinness or boddibgtons. Maybe the closest thing to replicating the hand pulled ales in England back home.

 

[jwalk4]

Haha that'll be Davy's Mug House! I love that place.

It's really hard to get something that's the same as draft English beer. For recipes try Graham Wheeler's Brew Your Own British Real Ale.

Wow, and you're right! I owe you many thanks!

I googled it and took a mental vacation at work today! You can virtual tour the place.

 

[BarkingSpider]

I go for around 2.0 volumes of CO2 when I bottle which I think is on the high side of carbonation for a bitter (http://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/), but I'm pretty happy with. It pours with a quickly dissipating head, and has a slight effervescence to it after that (not flat, but not in the least bubbly).

 

[serum]

Wow, and you're right! I owe you many thanks!

I googled it and took a mental vacation at work today! You can virtual tour the place.

I bet you can almost taste the "old wallop"

 

[Bailey_Brew]

Izzie - I couldn't agree more. I am very much a newbie but I got started to try to brew the kinds of low gravity real ale I came to like while living there. Yay CAMRA! There are loads of recipes out there - on this site and on BYO. I also found a good set of recipes in a basic homebrew publication called "The Complete Homebrew Handbook." It's an oversized magazine format. It has a bunch of clone recipes and about some homebrew recipes from one of the English homebrew gurus. I found it on the magazine rack at one of the big chain bookstores.

Bitter ales are largely a variation on:

Maris Otter
Crystal
Black

some with torrified wheat or carapils sometimes.

Hops are more often than not EKG or Fuggles. One of my favorites from Norfolk is described on the web as using Goldings, Progress, and Styrian Goldings. (There is a recent article in BYO on some of these older varieties of hops.)

Cheers!

 

[philosofool]

I think that the temperature is a bigger thing than people realize too. Almost every ale tastes better at 50 degrees than 38, including American IPA, stout, bitter, saison--I can't think of an ale that I like better cold as opposed to cool.

As far as carbonation, CAMRA'S own research indicated that CO2 pushed beer tastes the same. Because they are rigid traditionalists who are trying to protect English beer from ruin by low cost, crappy alteratives, they still don't allow it. If you are kegging, check a carbonation table for the right pressure when serving at 55 degrees for 1.2 to 1.6 volumes CO2; I am guessing 8 psi.