English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

[kmarkstevens]

Isn't the Newcastle brewery infamous for using slops?

While I haven't tried a Lee's Best Mild, I have made dozens of Shut Up Recipes. I even got a birthday recipe for an AK that was great. I do have various homemade inverts, maize, a dozen English yeasties, etc. So I've got the ingredients and have made many a drinkable pint. That said, the mild at the Machine House brewery was fantastic.

Just reinforces that after my divorce is final, I NEED to go to the UK for a sampling tour to fully appreciate what the end product should taste like. It's one thing to take a Shut Up recipe and make something tasty, it's another to know what it should taste like and shoot for that.

 

[shoreman]

Thought this would be a good place to post.

Do any of you have this book?

https://shop1.camra.org.uk/index.php/product/brew-your-own-british-real-ale/

I have the first version of the book - https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-us/...MItPuj2sru5QIVCZ2zCh00pwYoEAQYAiABEgLTx_D_BwE

and was wondering if the new version has updated or new recipes? Thanks.

 

[cire]

Thought this would be a good place to post.

Do any of you have this book?

https://shop1.camra.org.uk/index.php/product/brew-your-own-british-real-ale/

I have the first version of the book - https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-us/...MItPuj2sru5QIVCZ2zCh00pwYoEAQYAiABEgLTx_D_BwE

and was wondering if the new version has updated or new recipes? Thanks.

Yes, my copy is of the third edition. AFAIAA the recipes were not updated, but some were replaced by others.

Graham was a great source of information and is greatly missed. The book contains lots of brewing information in addition to recipes and is a worthy purchase for anyone interested in British Beers.

 

[Franktalk]

I also have the third edition. It is great! I've brewed many of the recipes, Fuller's London Porter, ESB and London Pride, Courage Director's Bitter, Youngs Special Bitter, Timothy Taylor Landlord, all came out excellent. You'll appreciate the beers more if you seek out and use the appropriate yeasts. Wheeler doesn't specify a particular yeast for any recipes, so you must do a bit of detective work to find one. Of course, finding appropriate yeast is easier now with the work that suregork and others are doing with identifying strains and their origins.

 

[shoreman]

Thanks - can you post that info on the yeasts? I’ve been searching for a house yeast.

 

[eimar]

Being a homebrewer I don't like to waste my time brewing low ABV beers. 90% of my production are doppelbock, tripel , belgian dark strong, imperial stout. But Bass Pale ale is one of my favourite standard ABV beer. Bass used to be available in Montreal but now I have to brew it at home. I found a recipe published by the Brew your own magazine. I usually buy Wyeast products but for brewing a beer similar to Bass pale ale, the Whitelabs WLP023 (Burton Ale) is the way to go.

https://byo.com/article/5-british-ale-clone-recipes/

 

[Hanglow]

Current cask brewed Bass is still surprisingly good too, it's made by Marstons currently and is probably about the best cask beer of theirs I've had. For such an old beer it's one I've only fairly recently tried for the first time from cask, I think I had it for the first time about two years ago.

The recipe I have for draught bass is this

Pale Malt 85%
Maltose syrup 10%
Extra dark Crystal (340 ebc) 5%
hops are challenger for bittering and Northdown for flavour/dry hop aroma, brew it to 4.4% abv and 26 IBU. LOTS of sulphate in the water.

 

[bwible]

Nah, it's famously their yeast - which is why I'm sceptical that 002 or 1968 are really from Fullers.”

Many here have probably seen this many times but I’ll throw it out there to anybody new. Where this info comes from about which yeasts are supposedly from which brewery. If this is not in stickies someplace it should be.

http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm

I have found some of these strains next to impossible to come by here (I am in PA on the east coast of the US), and most of the listed White Labs English strains are limited release only from their vault. Which in my experience has never opened. “Only 225 more orders until your order ships.” I read there was something done with their vault recently but when I asked nobody here knew anything about it and I didn’t manage to find anything new available. I would really like to try the WLP026 some time. Just not to be had though.

The strains I’ve used are mostly Wyeast 1028 for English Pale Ales and bitters (supposedly Worthington White Shield?) and I like the result this yeast produces. When I was making mild regularly I found Wyeast 1275 best to my liking for milds. Won several first place category ribbons for mild made with 1275.

I would describe the 1275 as very clean and more neutral with less character than most of the other English strains I’ve used. The 1028 has more character and the word I would use is minerally. I have also made barleywine with the 1275 using the cake from the mild as a starter. In my experience I would compare 1275 favorably to 1056 and just about say I could use them almost interchangeably.

 

[ba-brewer]

@bwible you missed the vault purge release by about 5months. I believe they are revamping but have not heard anything either.

I have a beer made with wlp026 on tap now, that does seem like decent yeast. It does make me a bit nervous because it is diastaticus and POF- so if might be hard to tell if you get a cross contamination. It had a bit of banana flavor at first but that seems to be fading some now, that might be helpful to identify it's presence.

Initially it also had a touch of vanilla which was sort of nice. @Northern_Brewer made a comment about that in the vault thread, which got me wondering if some wheat added to the grain bill might increase the vanilla flavor.

Think I will try wlp026 again soon in an English IPA.

WLP039 is available as a seasonal vault release now, I used it in some golden ales with good results. It is pretty clean, attenuated well, lets the hop flavor come through and drops clear quickly.

 

[eimar]

Hanglow, Until around the year Bass was available in the Quebec government owned liquor stores. Then when Bass was acquired by "the devil" ( as a Belgian I completely dislike Abinbev-INterbrew ) it completely disapeared of the Canadian market. The way I understand, cask Bass is still brewed under contract by Marstons.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Many here have probably seen this many times but I’ll throw it out there to anybody new. Where this info comes from about which yeasts are supposedly from which brewery. If this is not in stickies someplace it should be.

http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm

That's a start and a great pioneering effort in 2006 from Kirsten England (who I know only from his impressive Shut Up About Barclay Perkins collaboration phase). That said, check out Suregork, who posts on these boards. Suregork, and in somewhat of a collaboration with White Labs, has mapped out the genomes of an impressive amount of yeast. See this brewing yeast tree chart updated. It's a complete eye chart but is definitely worth checking out to see what pairs with what, and how close genetically some yeasties are.

Seperately, Whitelabs is going to add the vault strains to the Yeastman website. Hasn't happened yet but should be soon according to an email I got back from whitelabs. You are right, that some of those vault strains took freaking forever. I've picked up several over the past 2 years, and then got a half dozen when they opened up the vault and shipped everything in June/July this year. Too bad you missed that opportunity.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Many here have probably seen this many times but I’ll throw it out there to anybody new. Where this info comes from about which yeasts are supposedly from which brewery. If this is not in stickies someplace it should be.

http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm

That's a start and a great pioneering effort in 2006 from Kirsten England (who I know only from his impressive Shut Up About Barclay Perkins collaboration phase). That said, check out Suregork, who posts on these boards. Suregork, and in somewhat of a collaboration with White Labs, has mapped out the genomes of an impressive amount of yeast. See this brewing yeast tree chart updated. It's a complete eye chart but is definitely worth checking out to see what pairs with what, and how close genetically some yeasties are.

Separately, Whitelabs is going to add the vault strains to the Yeastman website. Hasn't happened yet but should be soon according to an email I got back from whitelabs. You are right, that some of those vault strains took freaking forever. I've picked up a few over the past 2 years, and then got a half dozen when they opened up the vault and shipped everything in June/July this year. Too bad you missed that opportunity.

 

[kmarkstevens]

duplicate post

 

[kmarkstevens]

duplicate post

 

[Hanglow]

Hanglow, Until around the year Bass was available in the Quebec government owned liquor stores. Then when Bass was acquired by "the devil" ( as a Belgian I completely dislike Abinbev-INterbrew ) it completely disapeared of the Canadian market. The way I understand, cask Bass is still brewed under contract by Marstons.

Yeah, we can buy cans/bottles of bass here but it's brewed differently to the cask version I think although it is the same strength. I imagine the bass that is available in NA if you can find it again would be different again.

It would be nice to see such an historically important beer treated with a bit more respect by AB/Inbev but I wouldnt get our hopes up!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Being a homebrewer I don't like to waste my time brewing low ABV beers.

I wouldn't be saying that on this thread! And one of the reasons to brew British-style beers yourself is to get them fresh if you can't get them locally, they can be so sensitive to ageing even in bottle - and of course it's almost impossible to replicate the One True Serve™ (cask) in export markets.

Bass used to be available in Montreal but now I have to brew it at home. I found a recipe published by the Brew your own magazine.

Just as a general comment I would use British sources for cloning British beers - there's plenty of them, and they're more likely to be based on the actual, fresh beer by someone with experience of what British beers are meant to taste like. That's not always the case for US authors....

Bear in mind that ABI have brewed Bass in the US since 2012 (ditto Beck's), so I guess that what you've seen is some change in the local distribution arrangements - or Montreal distributors shared British views on the US-brewed impostor.

Current cask brewed Bass is still surprisingly good too, it's made by Marstons currently and is probably about the best cask beer of theirs I've had.

Bit unfair - I don't know if it's dry-hopping or what, but beers like Pedigree need to be super-fresh as they get dull within hours of a cask being tapped. Get Pedigree at a high-throughput event like a festival or sports stadium and it can be cracking.

Many here have probably seen this many times but I’ll throw it out there to anybody new. Where this info comes from about which yeasts are supposedly from which brewery. If this is not in stickies someplace it should be.

http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm

Although that's the usual list people quote in relation to yeast sources, it was demonstrably nonsense in some cases (particularly in relation to British strains) even before we had genome sequencing. Inevitably such lists have a lot of coulda-woulda-shoulda, but dmtaylor's list is the least bad one we have, at least it's based on both DNA results and practical brewing experience.

I would describe the 1275 as very clean and more neutral with less character than most of the other English strains I’ve used....I would compare 1275 favorably to 1056 and just about say I could use them almost interchangeably.

Clean is just another word for bland - which is not what British yeast are about. You want the most characterful yeasts you can find, it's a vital part of the balance of British beer - and most commercial homebrew yeasts lack character compared to the ones actually used in British breweries.

WLP039 is available as a seasonal vault release now, I used it in some golden ales with good results. It is pretty clean, attenuated well, lets the hop flavor come through and drops clear quickly.

WLP039 is effectively a liquid version of Nottingham.

As an aside, Kristen England was the BJCP’s educational director for many years and is now brewing at Bent Brewstillery in Minnesota, he also has a PhD in pharmacology.

 

[Landlord]

This time of year, I nearly always brew an nice winter warmer style british ale. Something with spicy hops but no spices, that is complex, rich and warming, but still drinkable (~6%) in pints! This year the recipe is:

Welcome Winter Willie Warmer

SG 1064
FG 1016
6.3%
IBU 33
SRM 11.28

11lb Crisp #19 floor malted maris otter (82.5%)
12oz Simpson crystal medium (5.5%)
12 oz torrified wheat (5.5%)
2 oz roasted barley (1%)
1lb of invert #2 (7.3%)

2 oz EKG FWH 60mins
1 oz Bramling Cross @ 10mins
1 oz EKG and 1 oz BX at flameout

Yeast: Wyeast 1469 ~200b cells (~2l starter)

 

[Northern_Brewer]

still drinkable (~6%) in pints!

You're a better man than me!

Worth noting that if you're using 2018 BX, they're much more Goldings-y than usual, if you want that blackcurrant you might want a different year (or eg Bullion from another year).

Some here might be interested in or have opinions on kmarkstevens' plans for a UK beercation over on this thread.

 

[TheMadKing]

So for whatever reason my strong bitter has turned out very hazy even after a couple weeks of cold conditioning. I rarely have hazy beers so I suspect that it must be ingredient related.

Would a dry hop of 0.5 oz EKG cause persistent haze?

I dosed the water fairly heavily with minerals too (160ppm calcium, 120ppm sulfate, 40ppm chloride) so not Burtonized but minerally

The basic recipe was

Golden promise
Crystal 75
A touch of brown malt and amber malt
Invert #2

Is this a common issue with bitters or have I managed to mess something up?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Nah - something like that should be dropping clear as a bell.

Two causes of haze - either yeast not dropping or excess protein. What yeast are you using?

I guess one cause could be excess protein either in the invert somehow, or maybe the GP - we've not had the easiest harvests lately, can you get the spec?

PS That's barely minerally at all...

 

[TheMadKing]

Nah - something like that should be dropping clear as a bell.

Two causes of haze - either yeast not dropping or excess protein. What yeast are you using?

I guess one cause could be excess protein either in the invert somehow, or maybe the GP - we've not had the easiest harvests lately, can you get the spec?

PS That's barely minerally at all...

I used 1968 which clearly flocculates like a Russian sailor, and it was a bag of bsg Simpsons golden promise that I won in a giveaway so unfortunately no.

You can also get haze from polyphenols as well, so it could be that the dry hop did it or I managed to get some tannins from the grain husks.

Ah well it tastes great and may be the fastest keg I've ever gone through. I pulled it from the yeast very early (based on that temp schedule thread) and it tasted like apples at first so I thought it had acetaldehyde, but now I'm convinced that I was getting faint Grassy from the dry hop and a hint of roast from the brown malt and my palate was fooling me. It's nicely fruity now with only an inappropriate flavor from the brown/amber.


I plan to brew a version 2.0 of the recipe soon (sans brown and amber) and faux cask condition it in cubitainers now that I have a place to store at celler temperature.

 

[cire]

Agree with NB and my last bag of Simpson's Golden Promise did make hazy brews.

I'll frequently use 160 ppm calcium (more sometimes) but that provides something like 300 ppm sulfate and 150 ppm chloride with attendant magnesium, sodium and alkalinity for such brews. My water is very alkaline and sulfuric and hydrochloric acids are used that convert it to sulfates and chlorides. I don't use phosphoric for that purpose as it leaves a calcium phosphate deposit in the HLT.

 

[TheMadKing]

Agree with NB and my last bag of Simpson's Golden Promise did make hazy brews.

I'll frequently use 160 ppm calcium (more sometimes) but that provides something like 300 ppm sulfate and 150 ppm chloride with attendant magnesium, sodium and alkalinity for such brews. My water is very alkaline and sulfuric and hydrochloric acids are used that converts it to sulfates and chlorides. I don't use phosphoric for that purpose as it leaves a calcium phosphate deposit in the HLT.

I'm probably going to get some Maris Otter for my next go-round anyway so hopefully that clears it up

 

[Northern_Brewer]

It's clearly not the yeast so I'd tend to blame the malt - the late winter and heatwave of 2018 made things difficult for spring barleys like GP to establish (whereas winter ones like Otter had been and gone one extra-early), and they ended up relaxing the specification, certainly up in Scotland. Plus the distillers tend to take all the really low-N stuff as they have tighter specs than the brewers. So if you've got any left all I can suggest is giving it a bit of extra finings in the kettle and perhaps try another cold crash?

A whisper of UK chocolate malt (say 0.9%) can be nice.

 

[TheMadKing]

It's clearly not the yeast so I'd tend to blame the malt - the late winter and heatwave of 2018 made things difficult for spring barleys like GP to establish (whereas winter ones like Otter had been and gone one extra-early), and they ended up relaxing the specification, certainly up in Scotland. Plus the distillers tend to take all the really low-N stuff as they have tighter specs than the brewers. So if you've got any left all I can suggest is giving it a bit of extra finings in the kettle and perhaps try another cold crash?

A whisper of UK chocolate malt (say 0.9%) can be nice.

It just so happens my version 2.0 follows that advice after looking through your posted photos of Fuller's ledgers

It's more a completely different recipe than a version 2 of the same recipe but my second go-round will be:


OG 1.050
IBU 42

83.7% Maris Otter
10.5% Invert #2
5.2% UK crystal 50
0.7% chocolate

0.45oz Magnum @60 minutes
1 oz EKG @10 min
1 oz Challenger @5 min
0.5 oz EKG dry hop

WY1318

Water: 144ppm Calcium, 250ppm Sulfate, 60ppm Chloride

 

[shoreman]

Does anyone here use Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale?

"Originating from the Hales Brewery in Seattle via the Gales Brewery in the UK"

I'm looking for a good house ale yeast for british styles that attenuates well and also drops quickly and isn't super finicky.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Not 1332, but I used the White Labs equivalent WLP041 once and liked it, it's got that easy drinkability to it that all British beers should have. I'll certainly try it again.

Along with 1272 American Ale II they're close relatives of the WLP002/007 Whitbread group, which makes sense as Gales supposedly got their yeast from Brickwoods of Portsmouth, who were bought by Whitbread in 1971.

 

[shoreman]

Thanks Northern Brewer, I had been using West Coast IPA from Wyeast which is a Chico or Stone yeast sourced from Canada I believe as a great house yeast. Super floc, attenuation and easy to use but I used my last generation recently and it looks like they won't be producing it this year as a platinum strain.

 

[TheMadKing]

Does anyone here use Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale?

"Originating from the Hales Brewery in Seattle via the Gales Brewery in the UK"

I'm looking for a good house ale yeast for british styles that attenuates well and also drops quickly and isn't super finicky.

I've used it a couple times as well and like it. It seems to accentuate citrus, pine, and resinous hop flavors which make it well suited for american styles. I used it to make a Northwest Pale ale with spruce tips (a clone of Deschutes Red Chair) and it came out great.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Does anyone here use Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale?

"Originating from the Hales Brewery in Seattle via the Gales Brewery in the UK"

I'm looking for a good house ale yeast for british styles that attenuates well and also drops quickly and isn't super finicky.

That might be a good yeast for you. That said, why not use a real british strain instead? To name just a few that I like: Nottingham is a workhorse that attenuates well, drops out clean and is far from finicky. Wyeast 1469 is highly flocculant with around 70% attenuation. WLP07 is clean, 80% attenuation and highlighly flocculant.