English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

[hout17]

HORRIBLE efficiency. The wheat was only partially crushed, SO many whole kernels. The good thing is, I am going to turn the leftover of the mash into lionsmane and chestnut mushrooms.

I got below 60% efficiency with a three hour mash.

I am going to buy myself a mill. That's enough.

Otherwise, everything went smooth. I dumped the wort onto the yeastcake of a 10% Victorian porter-ish type of beer which was in there for 2 weeks. Now I know why they say that you shouldn't reuse the yeast of a big beer. Man it took LONG to really get going. Little activity only after 15 minutes but for a 1.065 og beer, I expected hard action within one or two hours with this massive yeast cake.

One day later I added some sugar, just to see what happens, maybe it was already done, but after that the whole thing started to get going.

The yeast mix of s04, notty, t58 and a hint of br8 seems to have worked pretty well in the previous brew btw. Looking forward for drinking it in a year .

Sorry to hear that. I think sometimes when they crush it, they just run it through whatever gap they have set without accounting for the very small wheat kernels. That's what pushed me in to getting a mill I didn't want to have to deal with getting a bad crush if I had wheat in the recipe or some other smaller kernel. Mind you, don't forget to change the gap for the wheat when you are getting ready to brew. One time I was over at my buddies and were brewing. Well, we had a few too many starting out and forgot to change the gap. We had a great time though lol. We decided that we would slow down on the adult beverages next time at least until we started mashing lol.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

A recent pint of my "Pennine mild".
Despite the fact it could have attenuate 1 point or 2 more it is a really nice ale, the Fermoale ay3 is a nice yeast, but the citrus from it is a bit dominating.
Gonna do some trials with a MJ m42, m15 and Fermoale mix to subdue the the citrus a bit and get some stonefruit in there for a more Yorkshire-y flavour.

I wouldn't be too scared of citrus.

I don't know if you can get it, but AEB are doing a dried version of what is claimed to be the Tetley yeast for Geterbrewed, albeit like most of their stuff for GEB it's only in 500g packs.

 

[Colindo]

@Northern_Brewer Thanks, hadn't heard of them before. Unlikely that I'd purchase that much yeast anytime soon, but maybe folks here could get together to share a pack. Is it the same as the Fermoale AY3, or related?

It's very rare to see the origin stated that clearly. Do Tetley's not care?

 

[HM-2]

Got a pretty simple best bitter in my house style planned for either the weekend or early next week.

OG 1.046
FG 1.011

85% Extra Pale MO
5% Crystal T50
5% Crystal DRC
5% Crisp Wheat

22 IBU of Challenger at 30m
10 IBU of First Gold at 10m
70g First Gold whirlpool (~6 IBU)

LalBrew Windsor

 

[Miraculix]

Got a pretty simple best bitter in my house style planned for either the weekend or early next week.

OG 1.046
FG 1.011

85% Extra Pale MO
5% Crystal T50
5% Crystal DRC
5% Crisp Wheat

22 IBU of Challenger at 30m
10 IBU of First Gold at 10m
70g First Gold whirlpool (~6 IBU)

LalBrew Windsor

Sounds good! Except for the Windsor, not a big fan of that one tbh. But it will be beer.

I will brew something similar soon. I have some drc flying around and will overdo it on purpose to see what it brings to the table. 15% DRC, 10% wheat and rest pale with 35 ibus and about 4.3% abv or something like that.

 

[Broothru]

Got a pretty simple best bitter in my house style planned for either the weekend or early next week.

OG 1.046
FG 1.011

85% Extra Pale MO
5% Crystal T50
5% Crystal DRC
5% Crisp Wheat

22 IBU of Challenger at 30m
10 IBU of First Gold at 10m
70g First Gold whirlpool (~6 IBU)

LalBrew Windsor

Throw in just a pinch of chocolate malt and substitute Imperial A-09 for the Windsor yeast and you’ll have Fuller’s London Pride. for the Challenger and First Gold hops. Brewed nearly the same recipe earlier this year and it turned out great.

 

[tracer bullet]

Throw in just a pinch of chocolate malt and substitute Imperial A-09 for the Windsor yeast and you’ll have Fuller’s London Pride. for the Challenger and First Gold hops. Brewed nearly the same recipe earlier this year and it turned out great.

Interesting, I'll have to pick up some London Pride again soon and check it out. I don't think I have since I started brewing this type beer, only their ESB.

I think I might be the only one around here that's starting to dislike the DRC. I do get the expected crystal flavors, but think I also pick up a toasted / rye / strangely grainy flavor from it as well which I do not like.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

I am not a big fan of DRC either...
But I very much like 4-5% of Simpsons ordinary dark crystal as character malt in a bitter.

 

[tracer bullet]

I just put a good amount of DRC in an Imperial Stout I brewed yesterday ("worked form home"). But I'll be keeping it out of everything lighter colored. Well, probably, as I need to brew another ESB inspired brew to be 100% sure that is the ingredient that I was not enjoying.

 

[HM-2]

I like DRC and the hint of slight rye spice it seems to give, but recent batches I've had have pushed the dark/dried fruit a bit less than I'd like.
I actually substituted Special B in an old ale over the winter and probably got a better beer out of it (though not very authentic!)

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

In an Imp stout with some aging it could work, but I'd use a light or medium crystal.
If it's a old timey recipe with loads of black malt and dark invert you will get dark fruit flavours anyway.

 

[tracer bullet]

In an Imp stout with some aging it could work, but I'd use a light or medium crystal.

I have totally removed any medium crystal / caramel 40 or 60L malts. I found they over-sweetened the beer for me, when it's already sweet enough. I went for the DRC as my one and only crystal to specifically get some of those raisin-like flavors. I also mashed at 148, then 152, then 156 for a half hour each just to make it as fermentable as possible for the same reason, I simply like it better with a lower FG.

Kind of shows how a lot of it's simple personal preference. Which is awesome.

 

[Colindo]

Interesting, I'll have to pick up some London Pride again soon and check it out. I don't think I have since I started brewing this type beer, only their ESB.

For clarification: Your beer might resemble the London Pride in a very general style, but even with Fuller's yeast you're not going to be anywhere close.

The recipe is 92.8% Pale Malt, 7% Crisp Crystal 150, 0.2% Chocolate Malt. Bittered with Target; Challenger, Goldings and Northdown as aroma hops in the last 5 minutes.

 

[Broothru]

For clarification: Your beer might resemble the London Pride in a very general style, but even with Fuller's yeast you're not going to be anywhere close.

The recipe is 92.8% Pale Malt, 7% Crisp Crystal 150, 0.2% Chocolate Malt. Bittered with Target; Challenger, Goldings and Northdown as aroma hops in the last 5 minutes.

Mine was 50% M.O., 30% Chevalier, 8% Crisp 77L, 3% chocolate, 2% acidulated, and a 454 gr. tin of Lyle’s Golden Syrup for the balance of fermentable sugars (thank you, @Miraculix!).

Hops were the same, except for a small charge of Target at :60 minutes, and the balance of Target, Challenger, First Gold and Northdown at :05 minutes.

The beer is currently on tap in my kegerator and is drinking exceptionally smooth, with a very pleasant toasty biscuit marmalade jam undertone. Very happy with the way it turned out, and reminds me of raising a few pints of LP at the Leinster Arms near Kensington Palace where I used to stay when in London.

 

[Miraculix]

I have bottled two "victorian" porters with rather interesting dry yeast choices. @Northern_Brewer you might be interested in these two.

1st one being the stronger one, came out @about 10%abv, mainly consisting of chevallier, imperial malt (a diastatic brown malt) and a bit of pale and wheat. Despite having about 50g chinook in the mash, I do not percieve any contribution from these regarding fruityness.

2nd one being of the "kitchen sink" type, dark wheat malt, wheat malt. chit malt and carafa special 2.

1st one being fermented with about 11g Nottingham, 11 g S-04 and 2 g T-58 plus some sprinkles of BR-8, dried brettonamyces.

2nd one was dumped on the yeastcake of the 1st one.

Now I have them side by side, 1st one being two weeks in the bottle, second one being 2 hours in the bottle and I must say, it is interesting. The second one has more brett character to it but the first one also has a rather interesting flavour profile which goes far beyond anything that can be attributed to malt and english yeast.

If you like it or not is clearly depending on your own palate, but as these two are both strong beers and also really green, I am looking forward to tasting them in half a year again.

Cheers!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

If you like it or not is clearly depending on your own palate, but as these two are both strong beers and also really green, I am looking forward to tasting them in half a year again.

...and brewing the same beer in a year's time, to mix 2:1 fresh:stock beer!

 

[Miraculix]

Man... these are strong.... 10% is quite something.

...and brewing the same beer in a year's time, to mix 2:1 fresh:stock beer!

That would be really interesting!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

...and brewing the same beer in a year's time, to mix 2:1 fresh:stock beer!

That would be really interesting!

Well it kinda reflects historical practice (as well as modern practices in eg some Belgian breweries with their krieks and other wild beers, and what Greene King does with Old 5X), and having had the opportunity to try a friend's version of a similar beer where he gave me Bretted and non-Bretted versions, I came to the conclusion that whilst they were good individually, the sweet spot was a 2:1 blend fresh:stock.

It's one of those things that's on my todo list but it's waiting until I properly set myself up for working with Brett - BR-8 might be an interesting shortcut though.

 

[Miraculix]

... - BR-8 might be an interesting shortcut though.

It is. But It is also rather unique in flavour profile. On it's own, only used while bottle conditioning, it is a bit too much for my liking. Also a bit one dimensional, if that makes sense. I always associated brett with a diverse mixture of flavours, some more fruity, some more horsy-leathery, but always more than one dominating flavour.

BR-8 gives me almost only one sepcific flavour which is in the direction of horsy-leathery, but not quite what I am used to from other bretted beers i had.

Having used it now in a mixed fermentation with 3 other yeasts, one of them being phenolic theoretically (did not come through in the beer), seems to have opened a door into a more complex BR-8 flavour profile. I used two relatively clean yeasts, Nopttingham and S-04, and bit of a more characterful yeast, T-58.

I get now the typical BR-8 flavour, a bit subdued compared to the bretted at bottling version (which is nice, the flavour was too much), plus in the background some fruity notes and some other "funky" notes which are hard to describe. Overall, much more complex than the beers I have added BR-8 to only at bottling.

There certainly is not much comming from S-04 and Nottingham, T-58 might have added something and also my mash hopping might have added something. But I tend to believe that these are not the drivers of these flavours as I wouldn't attribute them to these factors just based on my own oppinion.

To cut it short, I am not sure what caused the additonal flavour compounds but I like them much more than what I got when I have added BR-8 only at bottling.

One thing I would like to see would be BR-8 in co-fermentation with an overly expressive and estery yeast like Verdant IPA. I cannot use this yeast in English beers anymore, much too expressive in an unpleasant way. American Hop driven beers however, greatly benefit from this yeast.

It would be very interesting to see if BR-8 would somehow turn these Verdant derived esters into something more "British" when co-fermented.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

BR-8 gives me almost only one sepcific flavour

That's why I thought it might work in a blend, where it's just contributing an element rather being the main show.

 

[ian59]

If anybody finds a good recipe for Robinson's Old Tom, let me know. It's a brilliant old ale (or strong mild) clocking at 8.5%. I'd bet it's pretty much pale malt and some invert sugar, maybe a pinch of black malt, though. Some reviews, here: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/robinsons-old-tom-cask/44577/

Overall, drinking here some of the best typically British beers apart from bitters and pale ales are milds. They tend to be 3.8%-4.5% abv around here, and they have some crystal or dark malts (chocolate or black malt), and almost every single time some darker invert sugar. They don't care much for hops.

If anybody finds a good recipe for Robinson's Old Tom, let me know. It's a brilliant old ale (or strong mild) clocking at 8.5%. I'd bet it's pretty much pale malt and some invert sugar, maybe a pinch of black malt, though. Some reviews, here: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/robinsons-old-tom-cask/44577/

Overall, drinking here some of the best typically British beers apart from bitters and pale ales are milds. They tend to be 3.8%-4.5% abv around here, and they have some crystal or dark malts (chocolate or black malt), and almost every single time some darker invert sugar. They don't care much for hops.

 

[Miraculix]

That's why I thought it might work in a blend, where it's just contributing an element rather being the main show.

This plus the possibility that br8 might screw around with all the substances that the other yeasts are secreting into the brew.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

View attachment 827456

Anybody know if Old Tom is worked on by brett? Sam Smith's Yorkshire Stingo and Fuller's Vintage are, and I think I recall Old Tom also having some brett-y flavour but not sure. Might also be results of oxygen ingress during maturing at the brewery.

 

[Colindo]

Anybody know if Old Tom is worked on by brett?

Nowadays I would always assume that it is not until I know the contrary. The last beer I had where I suspected some Brett flavour was Traquair House Ale and I afterwards read that they are actually still using their old oak vessels, so it's possible. Not sure about Stingo (would be interested to know) but Fuller's definitely does not use any Brettanomyces.

I had Old Tom from cask during the Great British Beer Festival and it seemed not to be bretted to me.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

I know Sam Smith use old barrels for their strong/stock ale so I would not be so quick to rule out brett for theirs.
On Fuller's Vintage: It does have some brett-y fruity and leathery notes going so I have always assumed brett was there.

 

[Colindo]

I was at Fuller's three weeks ago and all oak vessels have steel lining inside. I also recently tasted Golden Pride and compared it to 2019 Vintage Ale, where the aged character was clearly present (sherry, dried fruits etc), but there was none of that famous horse blanket or unexpected tropical fruits. So that's where I draw the conclusion Fuller's does not use Brett.

Gale's Prize Old Ale, on the other hand, is know to have all sorts of stuff in their ale. Have a few bottles here, but not tasted them yet.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

View attachment 827456

My recipe for 12 litres

Old Tom​

British Strong Ale
8.0% / 18.4 °P
Recipe by
Graham Wheeler
All Grain

Mash Tun​

70% efficiency
Batch Volume: 12 L
Boil Time: 60 min
Mash Water: 11.42 L
Sparge Water: 7.55 L
Total Water: 18.97 L
Boil Volume: 16.54 L
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.057

Vitals​

Original Gravity: 1.076
Final Gravity: 1.015
IBU (Tinseth): 37
BU/GU: 0.48
Colour: 20.5 SRM

Mash​

Temperature — 67 °C — 60 min

Malts (3.86 kg)​

3.5 kg (86.2%) — Crisp Finest Maris Otter® Ale Malt — Grain — 3.3 SRM
300 g (7.4%) — Crisp Extra Light Crystal 100 — Grain — 56 SRM
60 g (1.5%) — Crisp Chocolate Malt — Grain — 530 SRM

Other (200 g)​

200 g (4.9%) — Brown Sugar, Dark — Sugar — 50 SRM

Hops (40 g)​

20 g (25 IBU) — East Kent Goldings (EKG) 6.7% — Boil — 60 min
20 g (12 IBU) — East Kent Goldings (EKG) 6.7% — Boil — 15 min

Miscs​

2 g — Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) — Mash
2.5 ml — Phosphoric Acid 75% — Mash
1 g — Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) — Sparge
0.5 ml — Phosphoric Acid 75% — Sparge

Yeast​

1 pkg — Crossmyloof CML Midland 78% (use Nottingham)

Fermentation​

Primary — 20 °C — 14 days
Carbonation: 2.4 CO2-vol

Water Profile​

Ca2+
80Mg2+
11Na+
26Cl-
101SO42-
26HCO3-

 

[DBhomebrew]

Nowadays I would always assume that it is not until I know the contrary. The last beer I had where I suspected some Brett flavour was Traquair House Ale and I afterwards read that they are actually still using their old oak vessels, so it's possible.

Possible, of course. I've never thought Brett while drinking Traquair House and there's no mention in marketing (Brett bring an premium upsale these days) nor in Alworth's book written in conversation with Lady Catherine. Granted, I agree it's possible.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Possible, of course. I've never thought Brett while drinking Traquair House and there's no mention in marketing (Brett bring a premium upsale these days) nor in Alworth's book written in conversation with Lady Catherine. Granted, I agree it's possible.

Just looked up the recipe for Traquair House in the big book of clone recipes and the yeast quoted is Wyeast Scottish Ale. I’ve made it once and it’s a great beer.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Just looked up the recipe for Traquair House in the big book of clone recipes and the yeast quoted is Wyeast Scottish Ale. I’ve made it once and it’s a great beer.

Clones are concerned with matching the beer in the glass, not necessarily the actual production recipe and process.

It's reportedly Nottingham. Probably doesn't matter all that much, it's rather clean either way. Colindo's thought of Brett would come from the oak fermenter, not the pitch. Valid, but I don't think so. Maybe the dense memel oak helps prevent organisms from setting in?