English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

[ba-brewer]

That’s a whole lotta roast.

Maybe on paper, but does not seem that way in the glass. Could be the low attenuation and the drying of the roasted grains balance each other out. For sure roasty in aroma with some fruitiness, chocolate in flavor with an almost balanced bitterness.

edit: The amount of brown malt was partially determined by wanting to use what I had left. Also the beer has been conditioning for about 2 months which might help take the sharpness off the roast malt flavor.

 

[Shenanigans]

One of the best beers I every brewed was the CYBI clone of Meantime London Porter.
Only changes I made were I used WLP007 instead of Notti and a single step mash at 68oC for 60 mins.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/can-you-brew-it-recipe-for-meantime-porter.239374/
I was really surprised that it was very drinkable after only 2 weeks in the bottle.
It was all gone after about 6 weeks and had improved a little by that time but I can't imagine that it would have improved much more for my tastes as I couldn't get enough of the stuff.
Next time I think I'm going to brew 10 gallons

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Anybody got an opinion on the grain bill of my coming brown ale?
Maris otter as base
7% crystal 240(ebc)
5% brown malt
2% pale chocolate
Aiming on 1.048 OG and 20 ibu, a small part of the hop addition ~0.8g/L will be First Gold at 15 min
Aiming for a lighter, kinda dry northern style brown.

Late response sorry but I'd say it is a bit light on chocolate, and that brown malt is not common or usual in brown ales. I like brown malt but I keep it to stouts and porters. No rules though.

 

[tracer bullet]

That’s a whole lotta roast.

I've made this recipe a few times, I'll link it below, it's from here. I have made small tweaks (for my liking I add a dash of dark crystal and some Franco-Belges coffee malt) but otherwise left it alone.

It's got a really high % of roasted malt in it and I agree with @ba-brewer that it's not too much at all. Well he / she was talking about a different recipe of course but I guess I'm agreeing that, perhaps it's the brown malt specifically, a lot can be used and it's not too much in the glass at all. You'd guess you'd be drinking an acrid, char flavored mess, but it turns out that it's nowhere near it.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/honeymoon-porter-2x-gold-medals-2nd-place-bos.683809/

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Late response sorry but I'd say it is a bit light on chocolate, and that brown malt is not common or usual in brown ales. I like brown malt but I keep it to stouts and porters. No rules though.

It was a bit of an experiment, I used brown malt and a little pale chocolate to get a light, hopefully nutty roast.
Also a little first gold at 15 minutes left, might go well with the light roasty notes. Brew went well, hit 1.047 as opposed to estimated 48 so that is definitely acceptable accuracy and tried out that domestically produced yeast.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

It was a bit of an experiment, I used brown malt and a little pale chocolate to get a light, hopefully nutty roast.
Also a little first gold at 15 minutes left, might go well with the light roasty notes. Brew went well, hit 1.047 as opposed to estimated 48 so that is definitely acceptable accuracy and tried out that domestically produced yeast.

Lets us know how the beer turns out.

 

[kmarkstevens]

@Erik the Anglophile What yeast are you using? One of the purported Fullers (Pub is my favorite)?

I've done a lot of SMASHY yeast offs' of different English yeasts. That was interesting, but even more interesting was when I did a few yeast offs' against the London Porter recipe below. I was shocked to figure out that the yeasts I preferred in a simple SMASH were quite different in a Porter. WLP085* (WLP002 + WLP007) completely stripped out the chocolate taste. S-04 was the hands down winner in that match up. Suggest you might try a split batch to see what tickles your palate, and what that might mean for your recipe tweaking.

Digression alert: Whilst it seems that brown ale defines London Porters, brown ale isn't for my palate. That same brown ale taste comes through in Samuel Smiths porter and a few other imports I've tried.

Here's a BYO article on 5 British Ale Clones. Whilst this is written by American Chris Colby and does not contain brown ale, I really like his Fuller's London Porter Clone. Nicely balanced with layer flavor. Here's the grain bill:
9 lb. 12 oz. (4.4 kg) British 2-row pale ale malt
14 oz. (0.40 kg) crystal malt (60 °L)
7.0 oz. (0.20 kg) chocolate malt
7.0 oz. (0.20 kg) black patent malt
4.0 oz. (0.11 kg) roasted barley (500 °L)

*WLP085. White Labs won't admit to anything beyond WLP002 and another British yeast. Most wags are for either WLP006 or WLP007. On the plane yesterday back from LA (after a visit to the WL tasting room on Friday), I noticed this nugget in the White Labs Guide to blending yeast strains: Low Attenuation Yeast ◦ WLP002 English Ale Yeast and WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast together to get the esters and higher attenuation that you want.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

@kmarkstevens It’s a yeast made by a Swedish yeast manufacturer who mainly make bakers yeast, but also beer and wine yeast on contract for commercial breweries.
They now seem to have in collab with a domestic HBS, released a few strains for the public consumer market. I thought to make a lighter brown ale to try it out in something that don’t have too much else going on to get a feel of what the yeast contributes.
It is likely a whitbread derivative, from what I gather similair to s04 but a little more of the good ester profile and none of the funky tartness. Also cheaper than imported alternatives and locally produced.
If I’m satisfied it will likely be my new general purpose house strain

 

[Miraculix]

@kmarkstevens It’s a yeast made by a Swedish yeast manufacturer who mainly make bakers yeast, but also beer and wine yeast on contract for commercial breweries.
They now seem to have in collab with a domestic HBS, released a few strains for the public consumer market. I thought to make a lighter brown ale to try it out in something that don’t have too much else going on to get a feel of what the yeast contributes.
It is likely a whitbread derivative, from what I gather similair to s04 but a little more of the good ester profile and none of the funky tartness. Also cheaper than imported alternatives and locally produced.
If I’m satisfied it will likely be my new general purpose house strain

What's the name of the yeast and of the manufacturer?

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Brewly English Ale made by a company Called Jästbolaget.

https://www.thehomebrewery.co.uk/brewly-english-ale-yeast
https://www.jastbolaget.se/en/@Miraculix

 

[duncan_disorderly]

@Erik the Anglophile What yeast are you using? One of the purported Fullers (Pub is my favorite)?

I've done a lot of SMASHY yeast offs' of different English yeasts. That was interesting, but even more interesting was when I did a few yeast offs' against the London Porter recipe below. I was shocked to figure out that the yeasts I preferred in a simple SMASH were quite different in a Porter. WLP085* (WLP002 + WLP007) completely stripped out the chocolate taste. S-04 was the hands down winner in that match up. Suggest you might try a split batch to see what tickles your palate, and what that might mean for your recipe tweaking.

Digression alert: Whilst it seems that brown ale defines London Porters, brown ale isn't for my palate. That same brown ale taste comes through in Samuel Smiths porter and a few other imports I've tried.

Here's a BYO article on 5 British Ale Clones. Whilst this is written by American Chris Colby and does not contain brown ale, I really like his Fuller's London Porter Clone. Nicely balanced with layer flavor. Here's the grain bill:
9 lb. 12 oz. (4.4 kg) British 2-row pale ale malt
14 oz. (0.40 kg) crystal malt (60 °L)
7.0 oz. (0.20 kg) chocolate malt
7.0 oz. (0.20 kg) black patent malt
4.0 oz. (0.11 kg) roasted barley (500 °L)

*WLP085. White Labs won't admit to anything beyond WLP002 and another British yeast. Most wags are for either WLP006 or WLP007. On the plane yesterday back from LA (after a visit to the WL tasting room on Friday), I noticed this nugget in the White Labs Guide to blending yeast strains: Low Attenuation Yeast ◦ WLP002 English Ale Yeast and WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast together to get the esters and higher attenuation that you want.

I can vouch for that Fullers London Porter recipe, it's great. But I'm not a fan of S04 in that type of beer myself. Verdant or Nottingham for me.

 

[Shenanigans]

There's also a yeast lab that started up about 4 years ago in Ireland, not far from my home town.
They have 4 or 5 english strains.

https://whclab.com/collections/liquid-yeast-pitches
At first the prices seem a bit steep but they are for 100 liter pitches.
So might be interesting for someone living in europe who makes bigger batches of beer.

Some of the online Irish homebrew shops have them in smaller quantities too for 22 litre batches.

https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/yeast-whc-irish-liquid-yeast-c-62_299.html
So maybe if you contact them and order a few different types they will send the smaller size vials.

 

[kmarkstevens]

I can vouch for that Fullers London Porter recipe, it's great. But I'm not a fan of S04 in that type of beer myself. Verdant or Nottingham for me.

If I could only choose one yeast to brew with forever, it is probably Notty. Wide fermentation range, pretty clean but some English taste, good flocculation, readily available, etc.

 

[DuncB]

" One yeast to rule them all."

Now where have I heard that before? Was it Lord of the Kegs?

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

@kmarkstevens and @Miraculix you also seemed interested in the thread about Brewly yeast. I brewed the brown this sunday, by tuesday morning there was a considerable amount of yeast pooling up on the bottom and it seemed to be slowing down so I raised the temp a bit then and again in the evening to 21c.
Yesterday(thursday) I took a sample and it was only down to 1.015, but in the tube it had that beige-ish, muddy active yeast in suspension color, I roused the FV a little and will try again come sunday.
I suspect it may be one of those yeasts that goes hard in the first phase, then is a bit more sluggish in the secondary phase of fermentation, so you might want to keep in mind to give it a few more days than usual after krausen drops.
Otherwise it tastes promising, no over the top esters or s04 sourdough taste despite being fermented at 19c, I dumped the whole pack in 13L of .47 wort though so it was maybe a slight over pitch, could have gone with like 2/3 of a pack.
Will taste again on sunday and hopefully it has dropped down to .10 or so by then.

 

[Miraculix]

@kmarkstevens and @Miraculix you also seemed interested in the thread about Brewly yeast. I brewed the brown this sunday, by tuesday morning there was a considerable amount of yeast pooling up on the bottom and it seemed to be slowing down so I raised the temp a bit then and again in the evening to 21c.
Yesterday(thursday) I took a sample and it was only down to 1.015, but in the tube it had that beige-ish, muddy active yeast in suspension color, I roused the FV a little and will try again come sunday.
I suspect it may be one of those yeasts that goes hard in the first phase, then is a bit more sluggish in the secondary phase of fermentation, so you might want to keep in mind to give it a few more days than usual after krausen drops.
Otherwise it tastes promising, no over the top esters or s04 sourdough taste despite being fermented at 19c, I dumped the whole pack in 13L of .47 wort though so it was maybe a slight over pitch, could have gone with like 2/3 of a pack.
Will taste again on sunday and hopefully it has dropped down to .10 or so by then.

Sounds promising, thanks for the info. I'm always looking for reliable English dry yeasts with character. So far, nothing has beaten verdant IPA for me, but it is always good to have something on hand with a different ester spectrum. If this is the superior s04, it would be great. I love s04 in a stout!

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Sounds promising, thanks for the info. I'm always looking for reliable English dry yeasts with character. So far, nothing has beaten verdant IPA for me, but it is always good to have something on hand with a different ester spectrum. If this is the superior s04, it would be great. I love s04 in a stout!

I will probably have to taste again on sunday and get back, as it didn't seem to have completely fermented out. I also screwed up the mash a little bit I think.
I was gonna be smart and end the mash a bit early, to account for the time it takes to scoop over the mash to the seperate bucket I drain off the first runnings from and use to sparge. This didn't take as long as I thought and probably resulted a bit too short mash.
Hopefully it will get down to 1.012 at least by sunday or monday.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Took a reading today, it had only gone down to .014 and started to clear a bit so I don't think it will go any lower.
I suspect my idea to end the mash early to account for the transfer to the sparge bucket that resulted in a 50 minute mash instead of 60 may be the culprit behind the low attenuation.
On a positive note it did not taste cloyingly sweet despite the high-ish FG, I'll chalk it up as a learning experience and keep doing full hour mashes since the transfer and draining of first runnings takes only about 2-3 min as opposed the 10 I thought.

 

[DBhomebrew]

If I could only choose one yeast to brew with forever, it is probably Notty. Wide fermentation range, pretty clean but some English taste, good flocculation, readily available, etc.

I've just collected the goods to brew Kristen England's 1914 Courage Imperial off Shut Up. Might you have any tips on using Notty for that specific recipe? It's my first time with this beast.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2012/02/lets-brew-wednesday-1914-courage.html?m=1

 

[kmarkstevens]

Notty is a beast that needs no hand holding. You can simply sprinkle in the dry yeast packet. You should aerate the yeast. Which can be just as simple as vigorously shaking the fermenter for 2 minutes. I have an electric drill with a wine aerator (a small paint stirrer works well) and do that for 2 minutes. You could also give it another 2 minute blast 6-12 hours later. Then sit back and watch Notty do it's stuff. It will likely be close or at final gravity in a week and be done within 2 weeks.

Notty has a wide fermentation range from 50 - 72F. I typically ferment at 68F ambient. The colder you ferment, the longer it will take

Notty is pretty clean tasting but has something that feels "english" and it flocculates very well.

FYI, the other W Yorkie strain is also a nice one. Would be more flavorful yeast than Notty, and does not clear as well.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Sounds good. I was a bit concerned with such a big beer fermenting at 67° (beer temp), but if you usually do 68° ambient sounds like it'll be just fine.

1469. Yeah, I'd usually go with the more expressive choice, but on this one Notty won out on price and convenience.

Thanks

 

[DuncB]

@schmurf

Just so you can see how the 5 points came out. No finings, magic beer.
Ed at Five points submitted the photos to their internal great lacing pictures.

Getting ready to brew the next batch to be ready in about a month.

 

[kmarkstevens]

@DuncB That is a damn fine looking pint. I bet it tastes just as good!

@DBhomebrew Forgot to warn you that you might want a blow off tube or keep this one overnight in a bathtub. Not sure how much headspace you've got but Notty can be pretty active depending on the underlying wort. Big beers can have a big top fermentation.

 

[kmarkstevens]

 

[DBhomebrew]

@DBhomebrew Forgot to warn you that you might want a blow off tube or keep this one overnight in a bathtub. Not sure how much headspace you've got but Notty can be pretty active depending on the underlying wort. Big beers can have a big top fermentation.

Oh, I think I'm prepared.

3-1/2 gallon batch in 5 gallon fermenter with a blowoff into a gallon jug!

My first dozen or so batches were with 1318. That was a climber.

 

[DuncB]

@kmarkstevens
Certainly did taste good, but you can't be too careful in these cases and I tested another couple just to be sure!

 

[schmurf]

@schmurf

Just so you can see how the 5 points came out. No finings, magic beer.
Ed at Five points submitted the photos to their internal great lacing pictures.

Getting ready to brew the next batch to be ready in about a month.
View attachment 729308View attachment 729307

Looking great @DuncB! Mine is still fermenting, but I'm missing my expected numbers a lot in this brew. I got much better mash effiency than I usually have, maybe because I switched from Crisp to Simpsons in this one... I can't explain it otherwise. And I did an overnight mash which probably made the wort much more fermentable.... I'm down at 1.006 at the moment, hopefully won't get much further. So it looks like it will be a 5.5+ beer... not what I expected and it's much difference than my other attempts.

 

[DuncB]

Looking great @DuncB! Mine is still fermenting, but I'm missing my expected numbers a lot in this brew. I got much better mash effiency than I usually have, maybe because I switched from Crisp to Simpsons in this one... I can't explain it otherwise. And I did an overnight mash which probably made the wort much more fermentable.... I'm down at 1.006 at the moment, hopefully won't get much further. So it looks like it will be a 5.5+ beer... not what I expected and it's much difference than my other attempts.

Interesting, mine fermented down pretty dry having used that wyeast 1098 which seems to go on and on.

But as I say all stocked up for the next brew possibly this weekend. Send pictures when you've finished to 5 points brewery they'll like that.

 

[cyberbackpacker]

...I'm missing my expected numbers a lot in this brew...I can't explain it otherwise. And I did an overnight mash which probably made the wort much more fermentable....

Bing, bing, you have a winner! You actually have identified why you have such a fermentable wort and are missing your numbers!

 

[schmurf]

Bing, bing, you have a winner! You actually have identified why you have such a fermentable wort and are missing your numbers!

Yes it certainly explains the attenuation, i'm looking at AA 87% right now... White Labs states 67-75% for WLP013 so I'm way above it. However, overnight mashing certainly feels like a good way for me to brew and I want to continue doing it if I can bring down the attenuation some. I might try to mash higher next time... maybe aiming for 70C/158F instead of 67C/152.5F? Not sure how much that would change things.

You think the long mash also explains my higher OG/mash efficiency than I usually have? I mean we're not talking a few percent here... I got an efficiency of 90% (Brewfather calculated) instead of my usual 75-ish.