English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

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Hanglow said:
Fair enough. I've only tried it twice to be honest, once from cask and once in the bottle. It was the cask one that clouded my judgement as I asked how old it was and it was only a couple of weeks out of the brewery and I had the third pint or so from the cask. I've not tried the canned variety or the stronger one they have just produced

I'm a massive maiden fan too and really wanted the beer to be good but it just didn't do it for me. The lower strength Robbies beers I have tried are all a bit lacking compared to their contemporaries (IMO of course :) ) A bit less malt, a bit less hop, no real yeast flavours etc . And the bottled/canned ones are worse as they are all pasteurised too which don't help lower strength british beers at all. This is a common problem though, mainly due to the general contempt the off trade has for the way they sell beer in the uk - not temperature controlled, must have really long Best Before dates etc. I could rant for a long time about british supermarkets/ major retailers and beer but I won't bore you :)

I'm just back from mid-west wales and didn't drink any draught beer due to circumstances but did drink a good few bottled beers - Tomos Watkins, Conwy Brewery and some canned Rev James plus a bunch of Fullers as they were on offer and really fresh.
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lots of good breweries around: Tiny Rebel , Otley, Handmade, etc. Rev James is cheap and solid. Would be a good one for Americans to procure 😆
 
Qhrumphf said:
4 pounds of #4 on the way. Tasting occasionally, the evolution of flavor is incredible. It's in between #1 and #2 at the moment so I still have a while to go.
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#4? Wow, that's brave! I burned #2 on my first attempt, haha. You really have to watch it the whole time.
 
I will drink many a pint at a place like this in my life! Definitely enough to at least remember the first portion of the evening!

Hanglow said:
I was in Conniston today and sampled some of the local modern classic bitter Bluebird

Makes me want to brew an all challenger bitter again! The Old Man Ale was excellent too. I preferred them to the HAwkshead beers I had yesterday, although they were very good too, just a bit more modern.


Here are some crappy pics.
Round the back, it's in a nice picturesque place
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Front
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brewing area
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bar
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bluebird
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oldman ale
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Looks a bit of a squeeze in the brewing shed, you can see why they have to contract out the bottled ales
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Not all that far from my house bitter really. I'm sure the black malt is just for color adjustment, that was a pretty common technique. But enzymatic malt huh? Says you can't get it anymore...maybe some 6 row instead?
 
lowtones84 said:
Not all that far from my house bitter really. I'm sure the black malt is just for color adjustment, that was a pretty common technique. But enzymatic malt huh? Says you can't get it anymore...maybe some 6 row instead?
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Even then, that's not going to add a whole lot of color at that amount.

I'm assuming "enzymatic malt" was a solution for what were likely at the time still fairly poorly modified malts by modern standards. He suggests just using more pale malt, which is what I would do.

Pale malt, invert, and Goldings. Sounds like a tasty Bitter to me ;)
 
Some of the old BP recipes had them putting micronized black patent in the copper for more colour, although I have no idea if JW Lees did the same. Even so you are right, that's about a teaspoon worth for a standard homebrew batch size, hardly seems worth it

As for the enzymic/enzymatic, some brewers still use it like Adnams (in their winter ale) and Hook Norton (in most of their beers). It's an acidified malt, used to lower ph so you could either use it if you need to do that for your mash or leave it out
 
Yeah, the black malt is a very tiny amount. I often just under 1oz for colour but I wouldn't add less. 1oz makes a difference in a beer that's all pale malt, but yeah, you'd get the main colour contribution on that one from the proprietary sugars.

I've read about roast malts contributing to stability in storage and such, maybe something to do with that? I must admit I never understood much about it.
 
JKaranka said:
Yeah, the black malt is a very tiny amount. I often just under 1oz for colour but I wouldn't add less. 1oz makes a difference in a beer that's all pale malt, but yeah, you'd get the main colour contribution on that one from the proprietary sugars.

I've read about roast malts contributing to stability in storage and such, maybe something to do with that? I must admit I never understood much about it.
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Hmmm....roasted malts do add an antioxidant property, and it doesn't take much. Perhaps that's it. Good thinking.
 
Do you know how much would be needed to benefit a beer? It would be a great fact if it was effective at very low %
 
Hanglow said:
Some of the old BP recipes had them putting micronized black patent in the copper for more colour, although I have no idea if JW Lees did the same. Even so you are right, that's about a teaspoon worth for a standard homebrew batch size, hardly seems worth it

As for the enzymic/enzymatic, some brewers still use it like Adnams (in their winter ale) and Hook Norton (in most of their beers). It's an acidified malt, used to lower ph so you could either use it if you need to do that for your mash or leave it out
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I still think it's for color, even though it's about 1/8 oz. in that recipe. This micronized part is why. Folks often grind black malt very very fine (I use a coffee grinder sometimes) until it's almost a powder. I've never used that small of an amount, but I don't doubt that it would darken 5 gallons a bit. I'm sure you could lose it, too.

That's strange that they would call acidified malt enzymatic malt. If that's what it is, why not call it acid malt or acidulated malt, which is fairly common?

This black malt for storage thing has me interested though. Great how such a simple recipe can trigger so much conversation! :mug:
 
I was again playing around with numbers to make a KK type old ale. 12-13lb MO, 1/2lb Amber malt, 2oz Black malt. 2lb invert added at end of boil. 2oz Challenger at 90m and 2 or 3oz of EKG at 20m. After fermenting with Sacc adding Brett and after a couple of months adding an oz of EKG before bottling.

Dry, bitter, strong and aromatic sounds good to me.
 
JKaranka said:
I was again playing around with numbers to make a KK type old ale. 12-13lb MO, 1/2lb Amber malt, 2oz Black malt. 2lb invert added at end of boil. 2oz Challenger at 90m and 2 or 3oz of EKG at 20m. After fermenting with Sacc adding Brett and after a couple of months adding an oz of EKG before bottling.

Dry, bitter, strong and aromatic sounds good to me.
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Scaled from metric. Expecting 90% attenuation with the sacc followed y brett combo. 9% ABV, ~70IBU, 12SRM.

10.5lb Maris Otter
1/2lb Amber Malt
1.5oz Black Malt
1.5lb Invert Sugar Syrup

1.5oz Challenger @ 60m
2.5oz EKG @ 20m

If the OG doesn't hit the region of 1.075 I can always top up with some more invert but I'd be happy enough with hitting 1.070 and leaving it around the 8.5% mark.
 
I forgot I had a packet of S33. I'll pitch that and M07 for primary fermentation. M07 has a long lag and S33 craps out early so they should complement each other nicely.
 
I've never used it based on what I've read. I think I bought it by mistake in a shop (I don't have any close by). Main problems I've read are flocculation and attenuation being poor which might play well into the hands of Brett c. Anyway, M07 should floc. After five or six months it shouldn't matter an awful lot.
 
If anybody has good arguments not to pitch S33 with M07 I'm starting the boil in about an hour :D
 
Overshot the volume but figured out what the issue with that is! Ending up with 7 US gallons of 1.064 wort. After brett it should still end up in the 7.5-8.0% ABV range. Should be more drinkable, though. As a side effect it might be within BJCP old ale guidelines...
 
Btw, do you guys get Lees Star Ale, Robinsons Old Tom or Fullers 1845 over there?
 
I don't get any of that stuff. To be honest, English beers are severely lacking everywhere I've ever lived. Newcastle, Boddington's, Fuller's ESB and maybe porter, maybe Trooper, and that's just about it.

Gonna crack the first of my Export India Porters later today. Had one in a Newcastle bottle and I noticed something a little funky on top, but didn't really look like a pellicle. I did a healthy dryhop with whole leaf EKG, could it just be some residue/oils?
 
lowtones84 said:
I don't get any of that stuff. To be honest, English beers are severely lacking everywhere I've ever lived. Newcastle, Boddington's, Fuller's ESB and maybe porter, maybe Trooper, and that's just about it.

Gonna crack the first of my Export India Porters later today. Had one in a Newcastle bottle and I noticed something a little funky on top, but didn't really look like a pellicle. I did a healthy dryhop with whole leaf EKG, could it just be some residue/oils?
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Enjoy!
 
Well, it's either slightly oxidized or needs more than 2 weeks in the bottle to come together. Considering it's 7% and has plenty of brown, amber, and chocolate malt I'm going to go with the latter. Even if a little green, it's pretty tasty and I agree with JKaranka that something along these lines is a great baseline porter grist.
 
lowtones84 said:
Well, it's either slightly oxidized or needs more than 2 weeks in the bottle to come together. Considering it's 7% and has plenty of brown, amber, and chocolate malt I'm going to go with the latter. Even if a little green, it's pretty tasty and I agree with JKaranka that something along these lines is a great baseline porter grist.
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Wait a couple more weeks. The hops will subside a bit but the brown malt will become very complex. Then you'll be regretting all the bottles you drunk before week 6!

Update on the old ale: after 12 hours the airlock was going like crazy. After 18 hours it was something like 2 or 3 times per second. Hasn't blown. The smell is the best fermentation smell I've ever smelled (which does worry me a bit). It's like pear drops or a lemon juice spiked with very sweet pear juice. I'll pitch Brett C in a week and give it three months before bottling with half the sugar I normally use.
 
I love redhook ESB and will be brewing one in the near future.

Just got done with a new castle clone tonight. Hoping it turns out awesome!
 
Last year's resolution was to brew all my own beer and not to buy any. Made research quite difficult but I got through the year ok. Now I've bought a bottle of Holt's Sixex to carry on with my research into strong ales, winter warmers and old ales.
 
JKaranka said:
Last year's resolution was to brew all my own beer and not to buy any. Made research quite difficult but I got through the year ok. Now I've bought a bottle of Holt's Sixex to carry on with my research into strong ales, winter warmers and old ales.
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I used to feel this way, but there are beers that I want to buy and not brew. I'm scaling back my batch sizes so I can supplement my beer with some top notch commercial beer, mostly German and British (Samuel Smith's being top of that list). Mainly because those beers are almost impossible to replicate. Doesn't hurt to keep trying though!

@lowtones84 - you don't even get Sam Smith's? That's basically the best we get in the states from the UK. My opinion, of course.
 
We do, I don't buy it though. Have heard too many horror stories from employees and former employees.

I wouldn't mind doing some research on old ales :mug:
 
beersk said:
I used to feel this way, but there are beers that I want to buy and not brew. I'm scaling back my batch sizes so I can supplement my beer with some top notch commercial beer, mostly German and British (Samuel Smith's being top of that list). Mainly because those beers are almost impossible to replicate. Doesn't hurt to keep trying though!

@lowtones84 - you don't even get Sam Smith's? That's basically the best we get in the states from the UK. My opinion, of course.
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I saved hundreds of pounds, though, and had enough beer to supply parties without worry! The only difficult bit was being without sours or lambics for a long time (but I had plenty of saison).
 
JKaranka said:
I saved hundreds of pounds, though, and had enough beer to supply parties without worry! The only difficult bit was being without sours or lambics for a long time (but I had plenty of saison).
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Oh, I could EASILY go with out sours and lambics! Haha. I know what you mean by saving a ton of cash. I stopped going out to bars for that very reason. I don't mind paying a little bit for a 6 pack or a single bottle every now and again. The real money drainer is going out for pints on a regular basis.
 
beersk said:
Oh, I could EASILY go with out sours and lambics! Haha. I know what you mean by saving a ton of cash. I stopped going out to bars for that very reason. I don't mind paying a little bit for a 6 pack or a single bottle every now and again. The real money drainer is going out for pints on a regular basis.
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I do still go for pints most weeks, but I drink session beers. In the supermarket it's 4 500ml bottles (or 330ml cans) for £6, but in the pub it's a 568ml pint for £2.05 on Mondays or just over that other days. For craft beers rather than cask ale it's more expensive (for example, in a craft pub a pint of cask ale might be £3.50, but a pint of the same beer on keg will be £4.50). Buying bottles of craft to drink at home is quite expensive, and often more expensive than drinking out. I like the Kernel's porters and stouts but they work for over £3 a small bottle (330ml), but brewing the same stuff at home is waaay cheaper, maybe a tenth of the price.
 
It's a good resolution that. I think I could go a year without buying beer to take home, but I'll be buggered if I'm not going to drink in pubs :)
 
Hanglow said:
It's a good resolution that. I think I could go a year without buying beer to take home, but I'll be buggered if I'm not going to drink in pubs :)
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Yeah, you just go hoping that some bar will stock a decent pile of Belgians and that one day your local would have a Kernel takeover! (Brewdog had a Kernel takeover, so got lucky there.)
 
Here drinking out is so expensive that I all but never do it. Pro brewer friends always ask why they never see me in the tap room. I don't buy much commercial beer as it is, but it's so expensive. Most of what I drink is homebrew.
 
JKaranka said:
I do still go for pints most weeks, but I drink session beers. In the supermarket it's 4 500ml bottles (or 330ml cans) for £6, but in the pub it's a 568ml pint for £2.05 on Mondays or just over that other days. For craft beers rather than cask ale it's more expensive (for example, in a craft pub a pint of cask ale might be £3.50, but a pint of the same beer on keg will be £4.50).
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See, you guys can go out and drink good beer for cheap. I wish I could just drop by my local and have a cask ale! If we want to drink cheap beer at a bar, it's Miller lite :mad:
 

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