English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

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I forgot. Ok, but it is relatively easy to keep it under 20 C with a water bath in a cooler room like a cellar or basement at the moment.
Yeah, I might have to look into that. Sounds like the best option for me.

By the way, the bad reputation of English beers comes from the lagers that were brewed in the 70s, not from Best Bitters or other Pub beers. In the book "Pulling a Fast One" by Roger Protz about the desastrous quality of beer, especially the new lagers, in the 70s, he quotes the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which states how horrible lagers in the UK are.

I do not think that the Germans have generally bad experiences with British cask ale. All the people I talk to tell me that they were surprised how good the British beers are. However I still use the phrase "British beer" and not "English beer" in public because "English beer" has such a bad connotation.
 
@Witherby That is absolutely true for historic recipes. I'm talking about the pretty modern category of Best Bitter though, which I believe to have been introduced some time after WW II.

In an interview somewhere John Keeling said he reintroduced the practise of dry-hopping at Fuller's. That sounds as if it had mostly been obsolete by that time.
Here is one example from Ron: Tetley Bitter cask racking specifications from 1985. The dry hopping is small, but Ron says that he's "not surprised that it was dry hopped."

As far as I can tell, Timothy Taylor's Landlord is not dry hopped, but when you watch the brewing process video and the way they describe the fresh hops added to the hop back, you get something like a whirlpool addition. One way or another, I think you need a whirlpool or dry hop addition (or both). Not like a west coast IPA, but still noticeable.

 
Here is one example from Ron: Tetley Bitter cask racking specifications from 1985. The dry hopping is small, but Ron says that he's "not surprised that it was dry hopped."

As far as I can tell, Timothy Taylor's Landlord is not dry hopped, but when you watch the brewing process video and the way they describe the fresh hops added to the hop back, you get something like a whirlpool addition. One way or another, I think you need a whirlpool or dry hop addition (or both). Not like a west coast IPA, but still noticeable.


If I come back to brewing, one of my dreams would be to acquire the 1.5 gallon hop-back from Stout, to do just this, the TT process. I haven't been able to compare, but it is said the hop-back quality differs from both hopstand/WP and dry hopping, and it would be interesting to do. Of course, that would require whole hops, and I've found so little whole hops in the States that I like to use in British ales.
 
@Witherby Well, Landlord is a bit of a different style. More like a Special Bitter. Their Boltmaker is the Best Bitter, I'd say. But since BJCP garbles these two styles, I'd not be opposed to a whirlpool addition. Just needs to be proper and not overdone. As I said before, I might also do a dry-hop with something like Target at pitching, which gives a citrus note that mostly just feels fresh.

@Gadjobrinus That is an interesting tool. My understanding so far was that a hopback is the same as a flame-out additions with the added benefit that whole hops help filtering the wort. I would be surprised if there are any other differences. I sometimes simulate a hopback in a pot with a tap, where I tilt the pot so that the added whole hops precipitate around the tap and act as a filter bed. Then I can very gently open the tap, recirculate for a few minutes and get clear wort into my fermenter.
 
@Witherby Well, Landlord is a bit of a different style. More like a Special Bitter. Their Boltmaker is the Best Bitter, I'd say. But since BJCP garbles these two styles, I'd not be opposed to a whirlpool addition. Just needs to be proper and not overdone. As I said before, I might also do a dry-hop with something like Target at pitching, which gives a citrus note that mostly just feels fresh..
Great point, but I’d be surprised if Boltmaker doesn’t get a hop back addition also.
 
@Miraculix Sounds great! Keep us posted.

How would you guys approach this?
Target between 4.2% and 4.5% with FG of 1.010.

85% floor malted MO, 7% invert, 5% T50 crystal and 3% wheat.

Circa 75% attenuating British ale yeast.

30 IBU of UK Challenger at 30 minutes

50g of First Gold at 5m
50g of First Gold in a dry hop post fermentation.
 
Target between 4.2% and 4.5% with FG of 1.010.

85% floor malted MO, 7% invert, 5% T50 crystal and 3% wheat.

Circa 75% attenuating British ale yeast.

30 IBU of UK Challenger at 30 minutes

50g of First Gold at 5m
50g of First Gold in a dry hop post fermentation.
That hop schedule is crazy and I doubt any bitter has that many late additions. You need to move the Challenger 60 minutes, no dry hop and a 15m and whirlpool 25g at each of First Gold.
 
Great point, but I’d be surprised if Boltmaker doesn’t get a hop back addition also.
I have been drinking bitter for 50 years and the BJCP guidelines are complete ballocks. Look at what Timothy Taylor describe Landlord

Brewers' Notes​

Water
Pure Knowle Spring Water
Malt
Golden Promise
Whole Leaf Hops
WGV/Goldings, Fuggles, Savinjski Goldings
Yeast
Taylor's Taste Strain
Ingredients
Malt, Hops, Yeast, Sugar, Water
ALC VOL.
4.3%
Units Per Serving
2.4
Style
Pale Amber
Aroma
Citrus, Hoppy, Fruity
Flavour
Full, Sweet, Lingering Hop
Bitterness / IBU 45

Bitter is a broad church and virtually all British non dark beer could be called bitter that includes
Golden Ale
Amber Ale
Pale Ale
IPA
Bitter
 
First of all thanks for the continuing support!

@HM-2 I only used First Gold for dry-hopping once and got quite an adstringent bitterness. How exactly do you dry-hop?

Thanks for the reminder about wheat, I might use some torrefied wheat that I have at hand. Don't want to end up with too little foam in a German competition.
 
Well, Landlord is a bit of a different style. More like a Special Bitter. Their Boltmaker is the Best Bitter, I'd say
Nah - Landlord is a classic Pale Ale. It's their flagship beer that if it was down south, they would call a best bitter. Before it was renamed Boltmaker used to be called Taylor's Best Bitter - but in the Yorkshire sense, where the best bitter is the weaker bitter in the range. Theakston's and Black Sheep are other examples, you get the same thing happening on the other side of the Pennines but less frequently.

It's just that BJCP is heavily influenced by the beers of the tourist areas in the Thames valley, which may differ from what happens elsewhere.

As for dry-hopping - it's more common than the use of Yorkshire squares for instance, and nobody would doubt the authenticity of using those. No it's not something that the really big breweries do much of, smaller brewers can do - and you (rarely) get it happening in pubs. But for me what matters is beer that tastes good. Dryhopping makes it taste better, so I do it, at up to 2g/l. Personally I'd stick to British varieties or Styrians at a pinch, particularly for a competition outside the UK, just to keep things in the envelope of what judges may be expecting, even if you'll see all sorts in beers on the bar in Britiain.
 
@Northern_Brewer Styrian Golding for dry-hop sounds like a good idea. Or in the whirlpool. Definitely something to think about.

Regarding Best Bitter, I still have not seen something labelled as Best Bitter above 4.2% ABV anywhere in the South. So for me too Landlord fits better in the "Ale" category, which was for some time also called special Bitter. Think London Pride, Otter Ale, Spitfire, etc
 
Regarding Best Bitter, I still have not seen something labelled as Best Bitter above 4.2% ABV anywhere in the South.
You certainly get them down south - eg Sambrook Junction - and if you looked at the Young's lineup without the names, at 3.7% and 4.5% on draught, that looks like a classic Ordinary/Best lineup, albeit the latter is called Special and is 6.4% in bottle. Which brings us to :
So for me too Landlord fits better in the "Ale" category, which was for some time also called special Bitter. Think London Pride, Otter Ale, Spitfire, etc
Remember that the "real" versions are the draught ones, which in the case of Pride and Spitfire are 4.1% and 4.2% ABV. The bottled versions are 4.7% and 4.5% respectively, but you shouldn't be influenced by that in their classification. It's especially ridiculous to imply that the Fuller's member of the special bitter category is anything other than ESB....

And Otter is 4.5%.

Trust me, everyone thinks of them as best bitters.

Partly what decides that is many pubs having an either unofficial or explicit limit on cask beer at 4.5%, as you don't really get the turnover on ABVs above that except in eg central London (hence Fuller's ESB at 5.5% being a regular on bars there but you rarely get beers that strength on cask anywhere else).
 
@Northern_Brewer I'm fine with the lines between the styles being washed out as can be seen in the Young's case, even though their stronger beer is called Special. But two of your examples are a bit misplaced.

For Sambrook's you have Wandle, which they themselves call Best Bitter, while Junction is their Premium Bitter.

There is a podcast out there somewhere, where John Keeling says something along the line of "London pride was our Special Bitter, so we called the new beer Extra Special Bitter". So for me there is a category above Special Bitter / Ale that is Strong Bitter, with those beers that are 5%+ ABV. At least that is how I would distinguish between the styles.
 
I'm going to make a "British lager bitter". I was just thinking about that I missed the opportunity to buy one of the liquid strains I recently wanted to test with my last online order.... But I still wanted to brew a bitter. So I am left with the clean dry strains that I have, notti and s04... Meh... Good enough but somehow my excitement was not sparked.

So let's make it a feature! In recent history my most more-ish beer that I brewed was a warm fermented diamond lager beer.

I'm going to do exactly the same but with a classic bitter grain bill and hopping rate. 10% dark crystal, 10% Demerara sugar, something to boost head retention and MO as base. 30 ibus English hops with moderate late and dry hopping.

Going to be great I hope!
Just brewed that one.

Going to be just shy of 40 IBUs and pitched at 19 C. The wort tasted amazing, I am really digging the crisp 400 dark crystal. Great flavour and not sweet at all. Also not bitter.

Forgot to order British hops... Found out when I started the boil and wanted to calculate the hops. So I ended up with Calypso as 60 min bittering und Perle as 16 g 10 min addition (I am out of Perle now). I only brewed 10.5 litres in total. I want to focus on smaller batches, otherwise I end up with too much beer to drink.

Now I am pondering wether or not I should dry hop with 10g of Calypso. I probably do it for giggles. The description sounds British enough for me, although it is American.
 
Just brewed that one.

Going to be just shy of 40 IBUs and pitched at 19 C. The wort tasted amazing, I am really digging the crisp 400 dark crystal. Great flavour and not sweet at all. Also not bitter.

Forgot to order British hops... Found out when I started the boil and wanted to calculate the hops. So I ended up with Calypso as 60 min bittering und Perle as 16 g 10 min addition (I am out of Perle now). I only brewed 10.5 litres in total. I want to focus on smaller batches, otherwise I end up with too much beer to drink.

Now I am pondering wether or not I should dry hop with 10g of Calypso. I probably do it for giggles. The description sounds British enough for me, although it is American.

My notes scream bittering only, and that late they don't come thru...
 
My notes scream bittering only, and that late they don't come thru...
Ok thanks. This means that this hop at least is not a citrus bomb. If it's more in the background, it's probably more in the direction of European hops which means it could work well as a dry hop in an English bitter. I'll give it a go.

This morning, the air lock was already going strong. I'll be waiting 4 days and then throw in the dry hops with a bit of sugar to get the oxygen used up.

The smell from the airlock eat actually pretty amazing. The dark crystal really seems to deliver. The beer is also quite dark. I have high hopes.
 
My notes scream bittering only, and that late they don't come thru...

Ok thanks. This means that this hop at least is not a citrus bomb. If it's more in the background, it's probably more in the direction of European hops which means it could work well as a dry hop in an English bitter. I'll give it a go.
I got quite a lot of melon from it, with a pretty resinous finish. Not a fan.
 
I don't follow. That's not a sly way to suggest you're wrong, I just don't follow. Do you mean for a short amount of time, or actually early, like 1 day into fermentation?
Adding together with the yeast. Works quite well to make harsch hops smooth. I experimented with Target alot and it only started tasting nice when I learned that Fuller's adds Target "At Declaration", which is when the yeast is pitched.

The hops stay in the beer quite long, but adding early let's the yeast work on all those harsh contributions. I'm probably incorrect in assuming these are alpha-acids, on second thoughts. More like geraniol and stuff like that.
 
Adding together with the yeast. Works quite well to make harsch hops smooth. I experimented with Target alot and it only started tasting nice when I learned that Fuller's adds Target "At Declaration", which is when the yeast is pitched.

The hops stay in the beer quite long, but adding early let's the yeast work on all those harsh contributions. I'm probably incorrect in assuming these are alpha-acids, on second thoughts. More like geraniol and stuff like that.
Ah, thanks for the clarification.

I've never had any harshness from dry hops though. But I also always add a bit of sugar to make the yeast restart fermentation for a short amount of time. Don't know if this makes a difference in terms of harshness. It works for avoiding oxidation.
 
Adding together with the yeast. Works quite well to make harsch hops smooth. I experimented with Target alot and it only started tasting nice when I learned that Fuller's adds Target "At Declaration", which is when the yeast is pitched.

The hops stay in the beer quite long, but adding early let's the yeast work on all those harsh contributions. I'm probably incorrect in assuming these are alpha-acids, on second thoughts. More like geraniol and stuff like that.
I think it might be a beta acid thing. Have you read Scott Janishs "the new IPA"? It's probably the most complete current hop knowledge collection that's available. Highly recommended to any brewer, regardless of IPA or not.
 
@Miraculix Yes, I have. To me the most likely candidate is biotransformation of geraniol to linalool and when this does not happen, the geraniol taste harsh. It has a green-grassy taste like green paprika.
 
@Miraculix Yes, I have. To me the most likely candidate is biotransformation of geraniol to linalool and when this does not happen, the geraniol taste harsh. It has a green-grassy taste like green paprika.
Wasn't it only particular yeasts that can do this? I don't remember... been a while since I had that book open.
 
Adding together with the yeast. Works quite well to make harsch hops smooth. I experimented with Target alot and it only started tasting nice when I learned that Fuller's adds Target "At Declaration", which is when the yeast is pitched.

The hops stay in the beer quite long, but adding early let's the yeast work on all those harsh contributions. I'm probably incorrect in assuming these are alpha-acids, on second thoughts. More like geraniol and stuff like that.

Are you sure that "At Declaration" is when yeast is pitched?

Dry Hopping in Britain is traditionally added to casks when declarations for Customs and Excise are recorded.
Declaration..jpg
 
Not exactly on topic but as this seems to be where the anglophiles hang out:
I'll be in England for a weekend next month. What are some of the brews I should seek out to educate and, ideally, enjoy myself? It's going be the South (Oxford), so Fuller's seems to be a given. Also, no Timothy Taylor pubs, although a few others should pour Landlord at least.
 
Just brewed that one.

Going to be just shy of 40 IBUs and pitched at 19 C. The wort tasted amazing, I am really digging the crisp 400 dark crystal. Great flavour and not sweet at all. Also not bitter.

Forgot to order British hops... Found out when I started the boil and wanted to calculate the hops. So I ended up with Calypso as 60 min bittering und Perle as 16 g 10 min addition (I am out of Perle now). I only brewed 10.5 litres in total. I want to focus on smaller batches, otherwise I end up with too much beer to drink.

Now I am pondering wether or not I should dry hop with 10g of Calypso. I probably do it for giggles. The description sounds British enough for me, although it is American.
Did I mention how good this one smells from the air lock?!

IT SMELLS SO GOOD!!!
 
@cire This has all been discussed before by people who know better than me. For Fuller's ESB, Target is added at declaration and Golding in the cask. Different hops work at different times, but many are harsh when added late. Many benefit from lots of contact with the yeast. Less are fine for late dry-hopping and very few like Golding also work with long contact in the cask.
 
Not exactly on topic but as this seems to be where the anglophiles hang out:
I'll be in England for a weekend next month. What are some of the brews I should seek out to educate and, ideally, enjoy myself? It's going be the South (Oxford), so Fuller's seems to be a given.
Things are much more regional than that - Oxford is right on the edge of Fuller's territory in terms of their pubs. However they're pretty widely available in supermarkets - if you want to take some back, Waitrose has a particularly close relationship and will usually have things like the porter and Golden Pride, and Vintage when in season (ie about now). Historically the big local brewers were Morrells (beers ended up with Marston, most of the pubs with Greene King) and Morland of Abingdon (bought by Greene King). So as you can see a lot of the pubs have ended up with Greene King, who make soso beer (although controversially Abbot did get a prize at the last GBBF) and more importantly don't keep it that well in general. Fortunately they usually make it clear on the sign that it's a Greene King pub (not always true of some of the other chains) so you can walk on by...

The thing with cask beer, particularly trad brown beer, is it's so fragile and throughput is critical - a beer can be enthralling at 7pm on a Friday night, but a pint from the same cask at 11am on a Tuesday can be dead. So bear that in mind, although if you're only here for a weekend then that is less of an issue. But November is one of the quietest months for pubs - the weather is usually some of the worst of the year, and people are saving for Christmas. One tip at a quiet time is to discretely look over the bar at the driptrays to see which beer has the most throughput.

Beer quality is also hugely dependent on skill in the cellar, so a place that is good for beer can go "bad" overnight due to a change in publican or supply arrangements. So be wary of recommendations that are even 6 months old, they can be out of date. And don't believe any opening times in third-party sources likes CAMRA guides, the pub's Facebook is the only reliable source of opening times and even then not always - things got particularly bad during Covid-19 but have settled somewhat since. The CAMRA Good Beer Guide (voted by CAMRA members, 2025 edition has just come out, not to be confused with the pay-to-play Good Pub Guide) is a good starting point, but you're lucky that Oxford is the sort of place that has a pretty active local branch and for beer quality I would stick to the shortlists for their Pubs of the Year :

City : The Grapes, Lamb & Flag, Mason’s Arms (Headington), Rose & Crown, Royal Blenheim, White Hart (Headington), White Hart (Wolvercote), White Rabbit

Outlying : Abingdon Arms (Beckley), Brewery Tap (Abingdon), Broad Face (Abingdon), Crafty Pint (Witney), Eagle Tavern (Witney), King’s Arms (Kidlington)

The Blenheim and the (former Morland, so it's a real pub and not a shed in an industrial park) Brewery Tap are the current champions. I hadn't realised Titanic had got down that far - I'd say that (given you should get a good one there) their Plum Porter is probably the kind of thing you are thinking of. It's a cult favourite that has spawned a whole genre of dark-fruit-in-dark-beers that you just don't really get in the US. Some people think it's too synthetic, but it's perfect for a wet November night by the fire. The rest of the Titanic range is a bit meh - the cherry dark is a decent attempt to create another hit like Plum Porter, Anchor's OK and I've a soft spot for the seldom-brewed Lifeboat which is a sort of tawny bitter - but if you're only passing through then Plum Porter is the one to have. They share the Blenheim with White Horse - Show Pony and Black Beauty are probably the picks there.

The CAMRA branch have a slightly out of date (2022) map of the main city centre pubs :
https://oxford.camra.org.uk/wordpre...2/10/City-centre-pubs-with-times-Oct-2022.pdf
The Eagle & Child is the famous one where Tolkien used to hang out with CS Lewis and others, it's been closed since the pandemic but is meant to be opening some time soon, which would normally mean either in time for the Christmas trade or not until Easter. The Lamb & Flag is also good for literary connections if that's your thing, Thomas Hardy and Graham Greene.

The pretty pubs tend to be owned by the big chains which doesn't normally correlate with the best beer or cellarmanship. And Oxford for me doesn't quite hit the spot - lots of perfectly nice pubs, but they tend to have been either gentrified or touristified-into-pastiche, they don't quite have the character of say York. But the CAMRA list of heritage interiors is useful if you're looking for "pretty" pubs somewhere you don't know - in Oxford there's the Bear, the Rose & Crown and King's Arms.

If you're there for the weekend then for "pub experience" rather than necessarily "best beer", you want to have a bit of a walk around late Sunday morning - ideally out in the countryside but in town will do - and then go to a nice pub for Sunday lunch (the heritage list can be great for finding pretty ones out in the country). It's a thing.

You probably won't have time, but if you want to experience the full range of modern British pubgoing then you should try and find a micropub converted from an old shop. Oxford's too prosperous to have many, but if you're in Headington the Tile Shop looks a classic example of the genre. They tend to be very stripped down and tiny, so you have to talk to people, they're not places to bury your head in your phone.
Also, no Timothy Taylor pubs, although a few others should pour Landlord at least.
Unfortunately Taylor beers are quite fussy, they need careful cellaring and conditioning time which they seldom get in pubs that don't specialise in them - and more time requires more space, which city centre cellars tend not to have. Also Landlord has become the kind of beer that gets bought on its reputation by pubs that don't specialise in cask, and then doesn't get kept particularly well. To be fair, Taylor's are one of the few breweries that actually goes round monitoring pubs outside its estate, but it's tough when a pub doesn't really care about cellaring. It's possible there's somewhere in Oxford that's known for its Landlord in the way that say the Bricklayer’s Arms by Putney Bridge in London is. I don't know, but I fear it's unlikely. It'll probably be OK though, enough to give you an idea.

Oxford is generally south of the sparkler divide, but if you see a lineup of handpulls with the odd sparkler on for the northern beers then that's a good indication of a publican that gives a damn. Very rare down south though.
The SIBA (BA equivalent) awards give you a pretty good idea of what the good breweries are, even if you probably won't find a lot of the specific beers which will have been and gone. Oxfordshire sits awkwardly on the boundary between the Midlands and southeast, neither of which annoyingly have their keg results on a convenient page so you'll have to do with the national ones for keg but these are their cask winners:
http://beercomp.barsbank.com/?page_id=6094
http://beercomp.barsbank.com/?page_id=6161

One brewery I would look out for is Salopian, which don't get nearly enough credit for their relentless high quality cask - over the last decade or so they've averaged over 1 medal/year at GBBF with something like 6 different beers without ever quite winning the big one, no other brewery comes close. Darwin's Origin is the epitome of modern bitter (or at least, before the haze bros took over...), Shropshire Gold is a great beer for downing by the gallon.

The two star keg breweries locally are Siren and Elusive, neighbours on the same trading estate. Siren won CAMRA's Champion Beer of Britain with Broken Dream, a 6.5% lactose coffee stout which you will rarely see on cask (nice one CAMRA) but definitely worth seeking out, particularly in rubbish weather. Elusive are instantly recognisable for their branding which is inspired by 1980s computer games, and their owner Andy Parker is sort of the British Jamil Zainasheff, a vociferous supporter of homebrewing and in fact recently wrote a book on homebrewing with Jamil for CAMRA. Oregon Trail WCIPA is their big hit, which I guess won't be too new for you other than you can sometimes find it on cask. It is great though.

Talking of volumes - remember that an imperial pint is 19.2 US floz so a half is just under 10US floz, but that sort of correlates with the lower ABVs. You don't get the range of serving sizes that you do in the US, legally draught beer has to be served in multiples of a third or half a pint. In general trad beer under 5% only comes in halves and pints, craft/keg places going into higher ABVs will tend to serve in multiples of a third, but it's not hard and fast. One side effect is that tasting paddles are not very common - they will be clearly advertised if they are offered. Pubs are generally fine with giving you tasters if it's not busy, but don't be that guy wanting to waste staff time with tasters on a heaving Friday night. In general if there's three or fewer handpumps then you're expected to know what you want and drink it by the pint, any more than that and there's more of a culture of "taste" rather than "maximum volume of alcohol" so it's fine to have halves and ask for tasters if it's quiet. Be a bit wary of places with say 10 cask beers, with a few exceptions they generally don't have the throughput to maintain quality. What little culture we had of taking draught out in growlers etc was killed off by recent tax changes intended to support pubs(!), but you can take out smallpack, and there's a bit of a subgenre developed of bottle shops that do a bit of crafty keg on draught as well.

Finally some reading - this series of articles from Jeff Alworth just before Covid-19 gives a good overview of the British scene from a US perspective :
https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2019/9/10/juicy-bitter-on-cask

There some hardy souls drinking in every pub in the Good Beer Guide - "Retired" Martin Taylor has completed it and is a great chronicler of smalltown Britain, Simon "BRAPA" Everitt (old site) is just over halfway through. Both well worth a read for those wanting their fix of British pubs by proxy.

The guides provided by the US military authorities for GIs in WWII are kinda fun - they describe a different world in many ways, but about 25% of it still holds :
https://www.johnbarber.com/wp-conte...s-for-American-Servicemen-in-Britain-1942.pdf
 
Things are much more regional than that - Oxford is right on the edge of Fuller's territory in terms of their pubs. However they're pretty widely available in supermarkets - if you want to take some back, Waitrose has a particularly close relationship and will usually have things like the porter and Golden Pride, and Vintage when in season (ie about now). Historically the big local brewers were Morrells (beers ended up with Marston, most of the pubs with Greene King) and Morland of Abingdon (bought by Greene King). So as you can see a lot of the pubs have ended up with Greene King, who make soso beer (although controversially Abbot did get a prize at the last GBBF) and more importantly don't keep it that well in general. Fortunately they usually make it clear on the sign that it's a Greene King pub (not always true of some of the other chains) so you can walk on by...

The thing with cask beer, particularly trad brown beer, is it's so fragile and throughput is critical - a beer can be enthralling at 7pm on a Friday night, but a pint from the same cask at 11am on a Tuesday can be dead. So bear that in mind, although if you're only here for a weekend then that is less of an issue. But November is one of the quietest months for pubs - the weather is usually some of the worst of the year, and people are saving for Christmas. One tip at a quiet time is to discretely look over the bar at the driptrays to see which beer has the most throughput.

Beer quality is also hugely dependent on skill in the cellar, so a place that is good for beer can go "bad" overnight due to a change in publican or supply arrangements. So be wary of recommendations that are even 6 months old, they can be out of date. And don't believe any opening times in third-party sources likes CAMRA guides, the pub's Facebook is the only reliable source of opening times and even then not always - things got particularly bad during Covid-19 but have settled somewhat since. The CAMRA Good Beer Guide (voted by CAMRA members, 2025 edition has just come out, not to be confused with the pay-to-play Good Pub Guide) is a good starting point, but you're lucky that Oxford is the sort of place that has a pretty active local branch and for beer quality I would stick to the shortlists for their Pubs of the Year :

City : The Grapes, Lamb & Flag, Mason’s Arms (Headington), Rose & Crown, Royal Blenheim, White Hart (Headington), White Hart (Wolvercote), White Rabbit

Outlying : Abingdon Arms (Beckley), Brewery Tap (Abingdon), Broad Face (Abingdon), Crafty Pint (Witney), Eagle Tavern (Witney), King’s Arms (Kidlington)

The Blenheim and the (former Morland, so it's a real pub and not a shed in an industrial park) Brewery Tap are the current champions. I hadn't realised Titanic had got down that far - I'd say that (given you should get a good one there) their Plum Porter is probably the kind of thing you are thinking of. It's a cult favourite that has spawned a whole genre of dark-fruit-in-dark-beers that you just don't really get in the US. Some people think it's too synthetic, but it's perfect for a wet November night by the fire. The rest of the Titanic range is a bit meh - the cherry dark is a decent attempt to create another hit like Plum Porter, Anchor's OK and I've a soft spot for the seldom-brewed Lifeboat which is a sort of tawny bitter - but if you're only passing through then Plum Porter is the one to have. They share the Blenheim with White Horse - Show Pony and Black Beauty are probably the picks there.

The CAMRA branch have a slightly out of date (2022) map of the main city centre pubs :
https://oxford.camra.org.uk/wordpre...2/10/City-centre-pubs-with-times-Oct-2022.pdf
The Eagle & Child is the famous one where Tolkien used to hang out with CS Lewis and others, it's been closed since the pandemic but is meant to be opening some time soon, which would normally mean either in time for the Christmas trade or not until Easter. The Lamb & Flag is also good for literary connections if that's your thing, Thomas Hardy and Graham Greene.

The pretty pubs tend to be owned by the big chains which doesn't normally correlate with the best beer or cellarmanship. And Oxford for me doesn't quite hit the spot - lots of perfectly nice pubs, but they tend to have been either gentrified or touristified-into-pastiche, they don't quite have the character of say York. But the CAMRA list of heritage interiors is useful if you're looking for "pretty" pubs somewhere you don't know - in Oxford there's the Bear, the Rose & Crown and King's Arms.

If you're there for the weekend then for "pub experience" rather than necessarily "best beer", you want to have a bit of a walk around late Sunday morning - ideally out in the countryside but in town will do - and then go to a nice pub for Sunday lunch (the heritage list can be great for finding pretty ones out in the country). It's a thing.

You probably won't have time, but if you want to experience the full range of modern British pubgoing then you should try and find a micropub converted from an old shop. Oxford's too prosperous to have many, but if you're in Headington the Tile Shop looks a classic example of the genre. They tend to be very stripped down and tiny, so you have to talk to people, they're not places to bury your head in your phone.

Unfortunately Taylor beers are quite fussy, they need careful cellaring and conditioning time which they seldom get in pubs that don't specialise in them - and more time requires more space, which city centre cellars tend not to have. Also Landlord has become the kind of beer that gets bought on its reputation by pubs that don't specialise in cask, and then doesn't get kept particularly well. To be fair, Taylor's are one of the few breweries that actually goes round monitoring pubs outside its estate, but it's tough when a pub doesn't really care about cellaring. It's possible there's somewhere in Oxford that's known for its Landlord in the way that say the Bricklayer’s Arms by Putney Bridge in London is. I don't know, but I fear it's unlikely. It'll probably be OK though, enough to give you an idea.

Oxford is generally south of the sparkler divide, but if you see a lineup of handpulls with the odd sparkler on for the northern beers then that's a good indication of a publican that gives a damn. Very rare down south though.
The SIBA (BA equivalent) awards give you a pretty good idea of what the good breweries are, even if you probably won't find a lot of the specific beers which will have been and gone. Oxfordshire sits awkwardly on the boundary between the Midlands and southeast, neither of which annoyingly have their keg results on a convenient page so you'll have to do with the national ones for keg but these are their cask winners:
http://beercomp.barsbank.com/?page_id=6094
http://beercomp.barsbank.com/?page_id=6161

One brewery I would look out for is Salopian, which don't get nearly enough credit for their relentless high quality cask - over the last decade or so they've averaged over 1 medal/year at GBBF with something like 6 different beers without ever quite winning the big one, no other brewery comes close. Darwin's Origin is the epitome of modern bitter (or at least, before the haze bros took over...), Shropshire Gold is a great beer for downing by the gallon.

The two star keg breweries locally are Siren and Elusive, neighbours on the same trading estate. Siren won CAMRA's Champion Beer of Britain with Broken Dream, a 6.5% lactose coffee stout which you will rarely see on cask (nice one CAMRA) but definitely worth seeking out, particularly in rubbish weather. Elusive are instantly recognisable for their branding which is inspired by 1980s computer games, and their owner Andy Parker is sort of the British Jamil Zainasheff, a vociferous supporter of homebrewing and in fact recently wrote a book on homebrewing with Jamil for CAMRA. Oregon Trail WCIPA is their big hit, which I guess won't be too new for you other than you can sometimes find it on cask. It is great though.

Talking of volumes - remember that an imperial pint is 19.2 US floz so a half is just under 10US floz, but that sort of correlates with the lower ABVs. You don't get the range of serving sizes that you do in the US, legally draught beer has to be served in multiples of a third or half a pint. In general trad beer under 5% only comes in halves and pints, craft/keg places going into higher ABVs will tend to serve in multiples of a third, but it's not hard and fast. One side effect is that tasting paddles are not very common - they will be clearly advertised if they are offered. Pubs are generally fine with giving you tasters if it's not busy, but don't be that guy wanting to waste staff time with tasters on a heaving Friday night. In general if there's three or fewer handpumps then you're expected to know what you want and drink it by the pint, any more than that and there's more of a culture of "taste" rather than "maximum volume of alcohol" so it's fine to have halves and ask for tasters if it's quiet. Be a bit wary of places with say 10 cask beers, with a few exceptions they generally don't have the throughput to maintain quality. What little culture we had of taking draught out in growlers etc was killed off by recent tax changes intended to support pubs(!), but you can take out smallpack, and there's a bit of a subgenre developed of bottle shops that do a bit of crafty keg on draught as well.

Finally some reading - this series of articles from Jeff Alworth just before Covid-19 gives a good overview of the British scene from a US perspective :
https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2019/9/10/juicy-bitter-on-cask

There some hardy souls drinking in every pub in the Good Beer Guide - "Retired" Martin Taylor has completed it and is a great chronicler of smalltown Britain, Simon "BRAPA" Everitt (old site) is just over halfway through. Both well worth a read for those wanting their fix of British pubs by proxy.

The guides provided by the US military authorities for GIs in WWII are kinda fun - they describe a different world in many ways, but about 25% of it still holds :
https://www.johnbarber.com/wp-conte...s-for-American-Servicemen-in-Britain-1942.pdf


Whoa. Just whoa.
I'm really really grateful you took the time to write all of this down, and for all the references you provided! I'll have some material for further research on the train from Munich (not the US :) ) then.
The pubs all have such wonderful names ("The Old Bookbinder's Ale House"!) and pictures, but it's hard to get an impression of the quality from that.

I spent the last (prolonged) weekend in the Czech Republic and it really confirmed my suspicion that (global average) Untappd ratings are largely worthless. Ratings below, say, 3.2 might be a fair warning, but almost all "traditional" examples as well as modern interpretations of these will land somewhere between 3.3 and 3.7, and the exact value is entirely meaningless.

We encountered a single properly bad brewery on our trip, and that was one of those with the highest ratings. The occasional acetaldehyde in a brew pub might be a matter of chance (guests consuming more than you had anticipated, so you serve a beer before it's had its time, I'm not judging - no, wait, I kinda am, sorry), but when three out of five beers (sampling tray; I would not have ordered a second pint after that first) are chock full with it, that's no coincidence. Like, I'm no expert, but some beers are just very obviously and objectively flawed, and I don't understand how these can score as well or even better than solid beers on those apps.
</rant>

TL;DR I'm really glad for all the more substantiated guidance 🙏
 
Whoa. Just whoa.
I'll have some material for further research on the train from Munich (not the US :) ) then.
Well in that case it's helpful if you give an idea of your location in your profile, it stops other people wasting their time on the assumption you're US-based which is the default for HBT...

But if you're taking the train into King's Cross/St Pancras then you may want to check out the King Charles I about 3 blocks away, it's a great little community old-school boozer that hasn't been "improved" and is all the better for it, it's a bit of a hidden gem. If you have less time then the Scottish Stores one block away is at the other end of the scale, it feels a bit over-restored but has some nice hidden corners and a decent range that leans more more crafty. But it's the sort of place to find what Jeff calls juicy bitter.

Then on the assumption you're heading to Paddington, if you take the Thameslink from St Pancras to Farringdon (if you have luggage then you have to navigate the lifts there which are...complicated) and then Paddington, you can get the full glamourous London Fuller's experience at the Victoria (out of the main entrance from Paddington and 400m down Sussex Place).

The pubs all have such wonderful names ("The Old Bookbinder's Ale House"!) and pictures, but it's hard to get an impression of the quality from that.
That's an example of one that's been named for the tourists, it's the bookbinder that is old not the house. In general the mainstream reviews like Google etc are a reasonable indication for ambience and to a lesser extent food, but are no guide at all for cask quality. For that you need CAMRA.
I spent the last (prolonged) weekend in the Czech Republic and it really confirmed my suspicion that (global average) Untappd ratings are largely worthless. Ratings below, say, 3.2 might be a fair warning, but almost all "traditional" examples as well as modern interpretations of these will land somewhere between 3.3 and 3.7, and the exact value is entirely meaningless.
Personally I'd say that for British beers the exact value is pretty reliable - within the range, you just need to understand what the range is. For best bitter 3.5 is about as high as they go - benchmarks like Landlord, Darwin's Origin and Harvey's are all in the 3.52-3.55 range, whereas you seldom see a mild (other than some that are out of style) above 3.4. You can probably add .25 to those for the same beer if it comes from a cool craft brewery though.

3.25 is drinkable-but-dull, wouldn't-order-another-unless-company-is-good, below 3.15 is avoid.

Part of it is as you have noted that scoring systems favour "extreme" beers over classic drinking, partly in the case of cask you have the problem that a beer that's perfect coming off the dray can be ruined by the pub, and partly...well we're British, we're just not as enthusiastic as our cousins across the pond!
 
Just brewed that one.

Going to be just shy of 40 IBUs and pitched at 19 C. The wort tasted amazing, I am really digging the crisp 400 dark crystal. Great flavour and not sweet at all. Also not bitter.

Forgot to order British hops... Found out when I started the boil and wanted to calculate the hops. So I ended up with Calypso as 60 min bittering und Perle as 16 g 10 min addition (I am out of Perle now). I only brewed 10.5 litres in total. I want to focus on smaller batches, otherwise I end up with too much beer to drink.

Now I am pondering wether or not I should dry hop with 10g of Calypso. I probably do it for giggles. The description sounds British enough for me, although it is American.
Bottled that one!

I start to understand what @Peebee means when saying that he gets what he wants from a bitter through nottingham and dark crystal. So basically he gets it from the dark crystal as notti is quite clean. I have tasted the "lager bitter" and it tasted... like a good bitter. Fairly bitter but in a nice and fitting way (I think I have been underhopping a lot of my bitters) plus really nice flavour from the dark crystal. It finished at 1.008, went down from 1.04. So not cloying or anything, but still might be a tad bit too much of the crystal, but this was expected. It was an experiment, small batch to see what would happen. So all thumbs up for crisp 400 dark crystal!

I think if a bitter drinker would have a pint of these when it is finished, they would probably say that it is a very fine bitter. Probably not the best they ever had but really enjoyable. I am happy with this outcome and I will start to develop this recipe further by adding suitable hops (will try northdown) and by scaling back the crystal a bit.
 

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