English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

[Hanglow]

I think Fergus Fitgerald the head brewer at Adnams tried culturing up that strain in the past and didn't think it was too close. But he said that it could be an isolate from their yeast in the 80s when it was more like 5 or 6 strains. That's what I recall from maybe a twitter convo he had. I'll try and find it

edit: found this it was about the wyeast version
https://twitter.com/Solebear/status/560553728512892928


https://twitter.com/Solebear/status/1006218973111865344
they continuously reculture one strain and add it to cropped yeast and also restart both strains from scratch

I know on Jims that a few people have used their primary yeast from minikegs and that if they repitch it it goes very attenuative very fast

and confirming that it used to have more strains
https://boakandbailey.com/2013/10/ancient-adnams-tally-ho/#comment-36602

 

[Miraculix]

Which was the British hop that was supposed to give you marmelade flavour?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

What sort of attenuation did you get? I got close to 80% attenuation, 78 and 79 on the two beers I brewed and a 152 mash temp. The yeast seemed fairly neutral in favoring hops and malt.



Been thinking about trying a few multi strain pitches. Assuming it is really half of Adnam's yeast pitch do you have any suggestion for a second yeast to pair with it?

As this this one seems to attenuate pretty well guessing team it up with something with less attenuation and maybe a better flocculator.

Would you pitch at the same time or stagger?

Obviously cultures have grown up being pitched together but I guess you could pitch the lessflavourful, more attenuating one later as it's job is mainly to finish up. If 025 and the Wyeast one are both from Adnams then they look like they represent the two halves of the culture. Or just get the most characterful yeast you can find, 041 is one of the better core ones, or 1469, something from Brewlab, bottle/cask dregs, even something like a bit of T58 or bread yeast as a percentage of the blend.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Which was the British hop that was supposed to give you marmelade flavour?

Probably thinking of first gold, but e.g. Challenger green hops can get very orangey in sunny years like 2018. Admiral gets it a bit, too.

 

[Miraculix]

Probably thinking of first gold, but e.g. Challenger green hops can get very orangey in sunny years like 2018. Admiral gets it a bit, too.

I somehow have brambling cross connected to this marmelade thing, but I couldn't find any further reference when googling it so I think I confused something.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Nah, BX is blackcurrant normally (but in 2018 the heatwav e killed the fruit and made her more Goldings-y like her mum).

 

[Miraculix]

Nah, BX is blackcurrant normally (but in 2018 the heatwav e killed the fruit and made her more Goldings-y like her mum).

OK, thanks for letting me know.

I will probably just go with Golding's, I really like them...... But I am also quite curious about other British varieties..... Maybe I just buy a bit of it from crossmyloof! That's probably it, smaller bags, more variety

 

[schmurf]

Yes I can confirm First Gold can give a nice marmalade flavour. A while ago I made a really nice ale with FG in combo with a dash of Godiva and EKG.

 

[TheMadKing]

Yes I can confirm First Gold can give a nice marmalade flavour. A while ago I made a really nice ale with FG in combo with a dash of Godiva and EKG.

Is there any other flavor descriptor that you guys could use to describe this "marmalade" flavor to help me understand it? I've never once tasted something in beer that I would associate with marmalade so I think I must taste it differently

 

[schmurf]

Is there any other flavor descriptor that you guys could use to describe this "marmalade" flavor to help me understand it? I've never once tasted something in beer that I would associate with marmalade so I think I must taste it differently

When I was a kid I used to spread some kind of orange marmalade on my toasted bread... that's what come to my mind when I have a sip of some "marmalade-y" beers. Don't know if that helps

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Per Wikepedia: Marmalade is a fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits boiled with sugar and water. The best known version is mainly made from bitter orange.

As a kid, I couldn't stand it. It was (and likely for me still is) awful tasting stuff.

 

[ba-brewer]

I think Fergus Fitgerald the head brewer at Adnams tried culturing up that strain in the past and didn't think it was too close. But he said that it could be an isolate from their yeast in the 80s when it was more like 5 or 6 strains. That's what I recall from maybe a twitter convo he had. I'll try and find it

edit: found this it was about the wyeast version
https://twitter.com/Solebear/status/560553728512892928


https://twitter.com/Solebear/status/1006218973111865344
they continuously reculture one strain and add it to cropped yeast and also restart both strains from scratch

I know on Jims that a few people have used their primary yeast from minikegs and that if they repitch it it goes very attenuative very fast

and confirming that it used to have more strains
https://boakandbailey.com/2013/10/ancient-adnams-tally-ho/#comment-36602

The link back the Adnams site from one of the twitter posts gave me a smile.

Obviously cultures have grown up being pitched together but I guess you could pitch the lessflavourful, more attenuating one later as it's job is mainly to finish up. If 025 and the Wyeast one are both from Adnams then they look like they represent the two halves of the culture. Or just get the most characterful yeast you can find, 041 is one of the better core ones, or 1469, something from Brewlab, bottle/cask dregs, even something like a bit of T58 or bread yeast as a percentage of the blend.

Mr malty has WY1335 being similar to wlp025, description seem close enough that might be the same half. The links from hanglow suggest at least one is a top cropper. WLP025 did not seem like one too me, but I do ferment in stainless so it is possible. The links do seem like the two strains are pitched together which makes thing easy. WLP022 is the next yeast for me to try, if it turns out similar to 1469 maybe I will try it co-pitched with wlp025. The starter for wlp022 did make a nice creamy krausen and dropped fairly clear when crashed.

 

[TheMadKing]

Per Wikepedia: Marmalade is a fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits boiled with sugar and water. The best known version is mainly made from bitter orange.

As a kid, I couldn't stand it. It was (and likely for me still is) awful tasting stuff.

Yep that's the problem, because that's the exact flavor I associate with marmalade, orange pith, bitter orange peel oil... That's not something I've ever tasted in beer. Maybe I just haven't tried enough... Yeah that's what I'll tell my wife when I stop by the package store on the way home... It's educational

 

[ba-brewer]

I once got a comment on a beer from a contest that said they tasted marmalade, but I could not pick it up. I believe it was a either a brown ale or a mild so I would guess it was not a hop derived flavor.

I googled marmalade a while back to see if it had a different meaning in Europe, kind like cookies and biscuits. Still not total sure on biscuit but I assume in reference to beer it should be a savor baked bread thing and not a dessert caramel/burn sugar thing.

 

[deere322]

When I was a kid I used to spread some kind of orange marmalade on my toasted bread... that's what come to my mind when I have a sip of some "marmalade-y" beers. Don't know if that helps

For me, I get marmalade from Sam Smith’s Winter Welcome.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Mr malty has WY1335 being similar to wlp025, description seem close enough that might be the same half. The links from hanglow suggest at least one is a top cropper. WLP025 did not seem like one too me, but I do ferment in stainless so it is possible. The links do seem like the two strains are pitched together which makes thing easy.

That's just mrmalty saying they both come from Adnams, without going into much microbiological detail. According to the official descriptions, 1335 is high flocc, medium attenuation, temp up to 75F, and is fairly clean. Wlp025 is described as low attenuation, temp up to 69F, medium flocc and giving complex flavours. You have to take with a pinch of salt given different test conditipns, but that sounds like a classic "performance" and " flavour" pairing to me.

I wouldn't read too much into topcropping, it's a very malleable trait that gets intensive selection depending on cropping regime so homebrew versions may be very different in that regard to the originals.

Most British breweries just think of "yeast" which gets thrown into fermenter regardless of whether it's a stable multistrain or single. Adams are somewhat unusual in actively managing 2 strains like that.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I don't recall having got marmalade from US beers - maybe Amarillo a bit, but Amarillo orange tends to be sweeter and "fresher". It's reasonably common in British beers either from yeast (Fullers yeast is famous for it, more obvious in cask and the stronger ones) or from hops like First Gold.

Yes we are talking about the same thing - a traditional British jam made with Seville (bitter) oranges. So there's a bitter, pithy, orange-ness, that's been "cooked" so there's a hint of caramel, and sweetness and tartness all in there together. It's delicious! Admittedly I mostly only eat my mum's , which is better than any commercial version by definition.

Yes biscuits are what you call cookies, but biscuitiness as a flavour describes something less sweet than the average US cookie, I'd say a Rich Tea was a typical biscuit flavour. It's hard as biscuits are so culture-specific.

 

[jonny24]

I'm always picturing arrowroot cookies when I think of "biscuits" .

 

[monkeymath]

Since we're discussing mostly ingredients, I'd like to swoop in and ask if other people were also experiencing - and hopefully overcoming - issues when bottling English ales?
I brewed two split batches to compare WY1318 London Ale III and WLP023 Burton Ale, first a bitter and then a mild. Both stayed in the fermentor for for about 3 weeks and attenuated around 80%.

After a week in the bottle I tasted a first bottle of the mild, and it was amazing. Everything I had hoped for. I kept all other bottles at room temperature.

Subsequently, all four batches lost their character quite quickly and became watery and way over-carbonated. I know it sounds like an infection, but I could not detect any off-flavours. I read a lot of similar reports from people using WLP002 or WY1968 (which I only used once and hardly got it to carbonate at all).

Any ideas?

(I recently brewed an American Pale Ale which, so far, does not exhibit any of these symptoms, so I'm leaning towards this not being an infection.)

 

[Hanglow]

English yeasts can be rather oxygen hungry, hence breweries traditionally rousing the beers or double dropping etc which adds more oxygen during the early/mid stages of fermentation. So if you don't use pure o2 before pitching then they can slow down and drop out, and you think they are done. You can rouse the beer about eight or so hours after pitching that can help and shouldn't hurt your beer as the yeast is active and will scavenge any added o2 . They can also be slow fermenting maltotriose. Another thing you could try is after a couple of days pitch a yeast like us05/wlp001 etc and that should finish your beer for sure but the english yeast will allready have provided its flavour/aroma etc.

That said 3 weeks and 80% attenuation is quite a lot (I wouldn't have a bitter in primary longer than a week) so I'd have thought your beer was done.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

+1 on the above.

You don't always have obvious off-flavours when you've got a diastaticus infection.

Keeping at room temp is suboptimal though.

 

[jturman35]

Does Fullers ESB have a heavy marmalade flavor? I seem to recall getting a orange sweet like flavor that I assume is coming from Fullers yeast.

 

[thehaze]

Fullers ESB has that marmaladey flavour and aroma as well. I like it a lot.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I don't know if this will be my favorite English Ale recipe yet, but hopes are high for Emptier's ESB:

 

[dwhite60]

I just finished reading this entire thread. What a wealth of information! Lots of ideas running around my brain! Thanks to all who contributed.

All the Best,
D. White

 

[monkeymath]

You don't always have obvious off-flavours when you've got a diastaticus infection.

Keeping at room temp is suboptimal though.

I don't really know how I would've caught a diastaticus strain. Brewed my last saison (using Mangrove Jack's French Saison, which I presume is the same as Danstar's Belle Saison) more than a year ago and hadn't had that problem before. Also, the problem occured simultaneously in two separate fermentors.
There is one link however, a piece of equipment I will therefore clean into oblivion: a bottling wand I hadn't used in a while. If my batches got indeed infected, I think it must've been that soab.

I'm keeping a bottle of my latest batch (American Pale Ale) around for a couple of weeks at room temp to see if it shows the same symptoms... If it does, I'll have a whole lot of cleaning to do. And then I should rebrew those English Ales.

 

[HTH1975]

Does Fullers ESB have a heavy marmalade flavor? I seem to recall getting a orange sweet like flavor that I assume is coming from Fullers yeast.

That marmalade taste I get when using First Gold hops. I’m not sure what Fullers use, but I doubt they’re getting that flavour from the yeast.

 

[ba-brewer]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...imperials-neipa-from-the-horses-mouth.642756/
Their recipe is an open book. Pretty much the same recipe was provided in one of brewing networks can you brew it episodes.

Not sure I am reading it right but it looks like target as a dry hop, which has citrus and spicy in it's description.

 

[cire]

Just a heads up for a webinar on an English ale that is, in my opinion for one, not as popular as it deserves, Mild.
Short notice sadly, it is scheduled for 4 PM eastern US time tomorrow, presented by Ron Pattinson who will be known to many here from his blog, Shut up about Barclay Perkins. Hopefully it will be an interesting event and a link to join the even should be found from here.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

That marmalade taste I get when using First Gold hops. I’m not sure what Fullers use, but I doubt they’re getting that flavour from the yeast.

Nah, it's famously their yeast - which is why I'm sceptical that 002 or 1968 are really from Fullers, unless they've changed along the way. But see e.g. this from their former headbrewer : https://keepthingslocal.com/fullers-brewing-up-a-storm/

"One constant of all the ales is the secret ‘house yeast’. ‘It has a very orange-y, marmalade-y flavour,’ says George. ‘It’s easy to pick up in ESB and, with Oliver’s Island, we enhance that flavour by brewing with orange peel.’"