English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

[iijakii]

Are they something to crack open after two weeks and drink fast, like hefes?

Definitely.

 

[Hanglow]

The big issue they seem to have is with commercial versions. Would it be any better if I kegged the beer with priming sugar/dry hops/fining agents, allowed the beer to carbonate naturally, then dispensed using beer gas? I figure that would alleviate the concern about the beer being "alive".

Don't worry too much about what camra thinks is good or not especially what they thought twenty years ago

Back then they thought that anything from keg equals the devils piss as most beers made in the uk in kegs then were, well, the devils piss. This of course disregards all the great beers that can be put in kegs, such as great German lagers, American ales and of course your homebrew.

If you like beer served on beer gas then go for it.

I would say a stout/porter/mild/bitter etc are still best served from a cask, but that's not really practical for most homebrewers as we tend not to be able to drink it quick enough before it goes out of condition, either through oxidation and/or loss of carb

 

[Qhrumphf]

Don't worry too much about what camra thinks is good or not especially what they thought twenty years ago

Back then they thought that anything from keg equals the devils piss as most beers made in the uk in kegs then were, well, the devils piss. This of course disregards all the great beers that can be put in kegs, such as great German lagers, American ales and of course your homebrew.

If you like beer served on beer gas then go for it.

I would say a stout/porter/mild/bitter etc are still best served from a cask, but that's not really practical for most homebrewers as we tend not to be able to drink it quick enough before it goes out of condition, either through oxidation and/or loss of carb

This. CAMRA puritanism is as bad as Reinheitsgebot puritanism.

 

[JKaranka]

Yep.

Cask is great for soft carbonation and body but you do have to drink the stuff in about two days. Even in pubs the stuff that has been recently tapped is possibly a bit too lively. It hits a great spot half way through the evening and is pretty good the day after. A couple of days in it's not worth it anymore.

It is really a thing to look at when you go to pubs. If there are four / five casks on but no customers it's likely to be bad. A busy pub with a couple of casks on it's pretty likely to be good due to the fast turnover. Obviously, the beers are more likely to be more boring themselves in the latter case.

Still: casks are great for birthdays, parties, openings, etc.

 

[JKaranka]

By the way, one of the reasons why lots of brewers were moving away from cask into keg and tank in the 50s/60s/70s was because it was difficult to keep. Not all pubs knew how to cellar beer properly, clean and change pumps and lines, rolls casks, change spiles, etc. Kegs are very easy by comparison as far as you have a source of CO2. I mean, to do cask properly you do need a cellar to keep the temperature fairly constant through the year and to draw from. If you do not have a cellar cask is pretty difficult and you start to move into gravity dispensation.

 

[lowtones84]

Yep.

Still: casks are great for birthdays, parties, openings, etc.

This is totally true. I typically package one gallon in a polypin and tap it at a gathering, and encourage everybody to drink until it's gone. Tapping a pin of my "copper ale" that I brewed about two weeks ago tonight with some friends!

 

[JKaranka]

Yeah. I don't get much advantage from kegging as each time I get one out we drink it in one sitting.

 

[lightjt]

10gal batch

10# Maris otter
10# best malz pale ale
2# best malz caramunich II
1# carapils
2oz EKG @60
1oz Brewers gold at 60
2oz Styrian Golding at 30
2 whirlfloc at 15
2oz fuggles at 10

mashed at 152-153 for 60

boiled 60 min

chilled and added 1 safale 05 and 1 Danstar Nottingham

initial gravity: 1.051 final: 1.013

3 weeks and kegged, added gelatin and aged for 2 more weeks, very nice beer. I may add 6-8oz of chocolate malt to my next batch, but this is a great nice drinkable beer. I used Best malz because I live in Germany, if not I would have used 2# crystal 60

 

[JKaranka]

Took a small sample of the EIPA while dry hopping. Seemed a bit solventy, which is something I've never had before. I guess I'll let it condition in the warm for a week after cold crashing and kegging.

 

[unionrdr]

By the way, one of the reasons why lots of brewers were moving away from cask into keg and tank in the 50s/60s/70s was because it was difficult to keep. Not all pubs knew how to cellar beer properly, clean and change pumps and lines, rolls casks, change spiles, etc. Kegs are very easy by comparison as far as you have a source of CO2. I mean, to do cask properly you do need a cellar to keep the temperature fairly constant through the year and to draw from. If you do not have a cellar cask is pretty difficult and you start to move into gravity dispensation.

True. I remember reading in my 70th anniversary cookbook from Luchow's German restaurant in NYC. They gave a very involved description of cleaning the taps/beer engines in the bars in the restaurant. August was very picky about that.

 

[jwalk4]

3 weeks and kegged, added gelatin and aged for 2 more weeks, very nice beer. I may add 6-8oz of chocolate malt to my next batch, but this is a great nice drinkable beer. I used Best malz because I live in Germany, if not I would have used 2# crystal 60

Pics?

 

[lightjt]

 

[JKaranka]

Nice one

 

[jwalk4]

Oh yeah!

 

[jlinz]

So I brewed the coveted dark mild on Sunday. It's been 48 hours with notty, and I never saw a krauzen or anything. Is it common for fermentation to happen without krauzen since the OG is only 1.035? I'm thinking it might be like a starter, which never shows krauzen for me.

 

[Qhrumphf]

So I brewed the coveted dark mild on Sunday. It's been 48 hours with notty, and I never saw a krauzen or anything. Is it common for fermentation to happen without krauzen since the OG is only 1.035? I'm thinking it might be like a starter, which never shows krauzen for me.

I don't use Notty often, but with my Milds fermentation is often over very very quickly. I've had FG within 48 hours before, often within 72 though.

 

[jlinz]

Huh, that's good to know. I'm not even sure I've had fermentation. I'm reluctant to open it up and check.

 

[JKaranka]

Give it a bit longer and see if it shows signs of life. With low OG beers fermentation can happen so quickly that you miss it easily. If you are away for the weekend you might come back to a fermented beer and miss the whole thing.

 

[DaNewf]

Leaving out porters and stouts (yes they are ales but I put them in a different category for some reason I can't explain) my favourite English ale recipe so far is KingBrianI's Common Room ESB. That may change in a couple of weeks (or not, who knows?) because I have a batch of Orfy's Hobgoblin Clone (ii) bottle conditioning as we speak.

I'll report back later.

 

[jlinz]

Well I took a gravity reading of my mild after 72 hours. Sure enough, the notty let me down and didn't ferment. The sample was delicious though, so no infection. Decided to pitch s-05 over s-04 since I tasted some esters from s-04 that I don't dig a few.batches ago and am scared of that yeast now. Hope it will be good with s-05!

 

[jwalk4]

Well I took a gravity reading of my mild after 72 hours. Sure enough, the notty let me down and didn't ferment. The sample was delicious though, so no infection. Decided to pitch s-05 over s-04 since I tasted some esters from s-04 that I don't dig a few.batches ago and am scared of that yeast now. Hope it will be good with s-05!

Yup. Nottingham has been a poor performer for me in the past. A few things that will slant the odds in your favor:

1. Re-hydrate the yeast according to instructions (I can dry pitch Fermentis yeasts, but never with Danstar).
2. Make sure the temp stays steady, or naturally free rise, but never the other direction.

People say Nottingham is a beast, but that just hasn't been my experience. I still use it from time to time because I love the taste, but I always hold my breath.

 

[dyqik]

This is totally true. I typically package one gallon in a polypin and tap it at a gathering, and encourage everybody to drink until it's gone. Tapping a pin of my "copper ale" that I brewed about two weeks ago tonight with some friends!

It's not a problem to take your time with polypins, as you don't need to let air in to serve. Beer in them, or in casks with cask breathers will last a month or so. It's letting oxygen into casks that limits the life of the beer.

I cask all my bitters (in a Speidel fermenter), and use an LPG regulator as a cask breather. The beer easily lasts a month at my basement temperatures.

Since I definitely count as somewhere with a low turnover, CAMRA will grudgingly approve my methods

 

[lowtones84]

It's not a problem to take your time with polypins, as you don't need to let air in to serve. Beer in them, or in casks with cask breathers will last a month or so. It's letting oxygen into casks that limits the life of the beer.

I cask all my bitters (in a Speidel fermenter), and use an LPG regulator as a cask breather. The beer easily lasts a month at my basement temperatures.

Since I definitely count as somewhere with a low turnover, CAMRA will grudgingly approve my methods

Polypins don't work in the same manner in my experience. The system inevitably lets some amount of oxygen in if you use a simple gravity dispense method and it loses considerable amounts of already low carbonation while the beer changes.

 

[Bosh]

Am most of the way through drinking my first pale mild which went like this:
-Enough Weyermann light Munich (can't get English malts in Korea atm).
-I pound American carabrown (a light brown malt that doesn't provide much color or bitterness but tastes like a more intense and toasty biscuit malt).

Then lots of late EKG hop additions, a little dry hop and US-04 yeast. Malty, but low enough OG to not be sweet and goes down so easy. Nice floral smell from the EKG as well. Great session beer.

 

[JKaranka]

Thinking of making a dark mild (3.6%, 20IBU, 27SRM). For 5.5 US gallons: 6lb MO, 1/2lb Crystal malt, 3oz Chocolate malt, 3oz flaked maize. 10g of brewer's caramel for colour. 2/3oz Challenger @ 60m for bittering. Could cut the boil down to 45m.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Thinking of making a dark mild (3.6%, 20IBU, 27SRM). For 5.5 US gallons: 6lb MO, 1/2lb Crystal malt, 3oz Chocolate malt, 3oz flaked maize. 10g of brewer's caramel for colour. 2/3oz Challenger @ 60m for bittering. Could cut the boil down to 45m.

I'd say if you're mixing some medium and very dark crystal, then cool. Otherwise I'd think that's gonna lack some complexity. Otherwise cut the corn and replace with some darker invert.

 

[JKaranka]

I know, it's for non beer drinkers. On the other hand...
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/lets-brew-wednesday-saturday-edition_19.html

 

[cyberbackpacker]

I'be been waiting for him to post that recipe after he teased it earlier in the week; I wonder what a 160- would look like!

 

[Hanglow]

He might have posted a 12guinea ale recipe at some point - that's 252/- Although I think the value of a guinea changed depending on the time period

quick check and this has been posted
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/fowlers-twelve-guinea-ale.html

OG 1.159

 

[cyberbackpacker]

Wow... 1.159!