So, now you have a Mircobrewer?Congratulations!
So, now you have a Mircobrewer?Congratulations!
Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew.Not really: I looked it up not too long ago out of curiosity. I think I was amazed that my approach to brewing is so much more casual than most.
I appreciate the proper English pronunciation .. The germinating barley is "killed" to make malt. Americans insist on pronouncing the "n". Whether brewers or potters, they always seem to want the n to have a say.
Sounds as British as it could possibly be!English Ales are what I prefer, but as I'm English and live in England, that should be no surprise. While I don't have any one favorite recipe, my brews mostly consist of 70 to 90% pale malt with the rest mostly an unmalted adjunct (such as flaked maize, flaked or torrified barley and the like) plus invert sugar. To this maybe a touch of crystal, darker malt, flaked oats or similar to add a slight tweak.
Hops are mostly British or Continental noble varieties, added at the beginning of the boil and at later stages. No hops are added during fermentation, but occasionally a few cones will be added to the cask from which the beer will be dispensed with a beer engine.
Yeasts are usually proper top fermenting, left open in early stages to enable easy rousing and to avoid it rising too high and escaping the vessel. Top cropping as fermentation subsides, to provide yeast for the next brew.
While I have recipes supposed to be precise, replicating the best beers have always proved futile, although many of those attempts still produced very drinkable beers. One beer that was always a favorite of mine was Hartley's XB since first found in 1962, but despite much searching I was never able to find a recipe. It was a while since my last effort, but reading the latest of this thread got me to look again, and while not finding the actual recipe, did come across a blog posting of last year that contains a link to a 2 hour video of the last brew at Hartley's Brewery in 1991.
Regional breweries, like Hartley's, were one time abundant in Britain, but slowly and surely they were bought out by bigger organizations and closed, there characterful beers then replaced by bland, fizzy, ice-cold horrors that lead to the creation of CAMRA, and the revival of Real Ale.
Hope those with the time might enjoy the viewing, although quite unsuitable for LODO enthusiasts.
If the Belgian influence is based on phenols, limitation of the precursors might do the trick. Corn and wheat both are rich in these precursors. Don't put them in the grist and you might not witness this influence in the next try.Hi DuncB, yes, an email might very well get the recipe and I'll think on that. From the video it would seem to be Simpson's malt, flaked maize and invert sugar, with no suggestion as to which hops. Even so, there may well be something it doesn't show.
I've had the beer a few times since the brewery closed, first in the Crown in Coniston in 1994, but none were like the original. I suppose it probable I now won't recall how the original tasted.
Indeed, the yeast will be crucial. As for Harvey's, I got their yeast from a cask, but it didn't perform well and the result was hard to judge. Also I got a yeast from Brewlabs, supposedly the strain sent to Harvey's from John Smith in 1956, Brewlab No 48. That went well, but the resulting beer was overpowered by that Harvey snatch, a sort of Belgian type influence. My afterthoughts were it is perhaps brewed at higher gravity and heavily liquored back (similar to in the Hartley video) reduce that effect.
There are so many different ways to brew any beer making it difficult even with the recipe.
Indeed, the yeast will be crucial. As for Harvey's, I got their yeast from a cask, but it didn't perform well and the result was hard to judge. Also I got a yeast from Brewlabs, supposedly the strain sent to Harvey's from John Smith in 1956, Brewlab No 48. That went well, but the resulting beer was overpowered by that Harvey snatch, a sort of Belgian type influence. My afterthoughts were it is perhaps brewed at higher gravity and heavily liquored back (similar to in the Hartley video) reduce that effect.
Sorry to hear about the long covid.It's known that an isolate from Harvey's is a POF+ (phenolic) member of the saison family, so a cousin of WLP037 Yorkshire Square and WLP038 Manchester.
There's been experience of homebrew attempts at simulating squares which have seen WLP037 tone down its otherwise massive amounts of phenols, so I suspect that the way Harvey control the phenolics with their house yeast is through aeration. On this view the use of fishtails and squares is a technological response to the peculiarities of saison yeast.
Talking of high-gravity British beers, I have a weird craving to brew a Carling clone (Carlish? Carlike?) high-gravity. Not sure when I'd drink it though, although the way the long Covid is going I might as well drink cooking lager rather than something fancy....
English Ales are what I prefer, but as I'm English and live in England, that should be no surprise. While I don't have any one favorite recipe, my brews mostly consist of 70 to 90% pale malt with the rest mostly an unmalted adjunct (such as flaked maize, flaked or torrified barley and the like) plus invert sugar. To this maybe a touch of crystal, darker malt, flaked oats or similar to add a slight tweak.
I am surprised by the head retention of this beer. It defies all information I ever read that low hopping rates lead to poor head retention.
Force carbonated at 12 PSI at 38F,
1 lb of homemade inverted raw cane sugar (didn't get it dark enough though)
Mild can be any colour.Agree the colour for a mild is quite a long way off. You could add gravy browning to it Sarsons brand or some sinamar , they add colour without flavour.
I recently let a batch go a really long time in the oven. Probably 6, maybe only 5 hours. Came out super dark, red/black. I cooked it up for Ron's 1914 Courage Imperial Stout but I've got an extra 1/2 pound or so that'll go in the season's first mild. I'm looking forward to it. Last time I made a mild I wasn't brave enough to let the invert go long enough to get real dark.
That's very true! Although 1917 Whitbread X was 9.5 SRM according to Ron P, so not a dark mild, and I'm off the hook.Not if it's meant to be a dark mild from 1917 !
What does he know!That's very true! Although 1917 Whitbread X was 9.5 SRM according to Ron P, so not a dark mild, and I'm off the hook.
Given that the XB recipe was from 1949 and rationing still in place the sugar and maize is likely. We can get malted maize down here from gladfield but I haven't tried it yet.
You could add gravy browning to it Sarsons brand or some sinamar , they add colour without flavour.
Hello are those sites still going….Keep it simple. I love quality Maris Otter, and these are the ESB guidlines that I like to follow (for simplicity sake I am just going to provide a link to my site)
ESB Recipe
Good Maris Otter does means no specialty grains needed for ESB, Pale Ale, Bitter, or IPA. In fact, the beers come out rather dark.
I assume you mean this one?I just brewed a mild inspired by a 1917 Whitbread X recipe reprinted by Ron Pattison, and I am surprised by the head retention of this beer. It defies all information I ever read that low hopping rates lead to poor head retention.
The exact recipe I used for a 6.3 gallon batch was 5.5 lbs of Crisp Pale malt, 1 lb of homemade inverted raw cane sugar (didn't get it dark enough though) added to boil with 20 min remaining out of 60 min boil, 0.9 oz EKG for 60 min for 16.2 IBU and 0.4 oz EKG for 5 min for 1.6 IBU. Fermented with 3rd gen WLP002 at 64F for 4 days, raised to 70F for 3 days, racked and conditioned at 41F for 7 days with pork gelatin. Force carbonated at 12 PSI at 38F, served in warmed glass in upper 40s.View attachment 736374
10.8°P 5.1% abv 90% AA 18 IBU
I assume you mean this one?
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2019/05/lets-brew-wednesday-1917-whitbread-x.html?m=1
Thanks for the mention, that's going to be my next brew
With 5% invert and verdant IPA. I'll target a bit of a lower og, around 1.041 and lower ibus as well, around 20-25.
And I'm going to finally buy his book.
Will bear the salt thing in mind, never tried it, but the quantity in the recipe I had planned to use it as a substitute in was only a couple of ml.My guess would be that it's a bit early after WWII for maize to be used for beer. I've just had a skim of a dozen or so of Ron's recipes from 1949&50 and none of them have maize, even the Scots weren't using grits.
Also, you tend not to find maize in northern England at any time. I have a hypothesis for that without evidence; I believe that maize is pretty high in ferulic acid, so you wouldn't want to take it near POF+ square yeasts. See eg this 1950 Lees bitter.
You need to be a bit careful with gravy browning, most of them contain a *lot* of salt. The Sarsons on my shelf is 16% w/v salt. OK, not such a big deal in the quantities that you typically add it in, but worth mentioning particularly if you're trying to keep your SO4:Cl ratio high.
We keep bees and have for years both in UK and here in NZ.An enquiry about the original recipe was sent to Robinson's using your link, DuncB. Any reply will be posted. Probably the original recipe didn't include Flaked Maize, but many northern breweries used it before WWII and still is to this day.
The enzyme invertase, used by beekeepers to replace honey in hives, is possibly the least error prone method, but it is a much slower process.
And I'm going to finally buy his book.
That looks great and very enjoyable surrondings too! I can feel the smoothness... .and just the right colour and very clear... you didn't use any finings right? I had a first pour from my latest brew of Five Points yesterday, was a bit too much foam... will see if it was just the first one or if it remains. Other than that my beer engine been working like a charm and I've been fully enjoying my last kegs of bitter! The five points that had both too high OG and too low FG turned out very drinkable, and the one where I hit a too high FG, resulting in a 3.2% beer was certainly drinkable as well. Also had a keg of Speckled Hen "clone" and a Simonds Bitter, made from this recipe.@schmurf just a couple of pictures of the five points from the beer engine at sunset.
Much better with the right yeast.
View attachment 736514View attachment 736515
Believe me, you want to brew one! A bitter on its peak, probably one to two months after brewing can be soooooooo good, you cannot imagine!I really enjoy following this thread, soaking up all the info on English ales. Somewhat paradoxically, given the thread's title, I still haven't brewed any of the recipes mentioned in this thread or even added one to my to-brew-list.
I have very limited experience with English cask ales - when I lived in the UK for a year, as a student, drinking in pubs was prohibitively expensive, and back then "beer" meant either Hefeweizen or Helles to me, so I wasn't able to actually take it in anyways. I did like the bottled "Black Sheep Ale" though - I have since found it in Munich as well, and while I still liked it, I did not feel a sudden urge to try and replicate it.
I'm not sure if I actually want to brew an "authentic" English ale. I think what I'm looking for is a somewhat "exaggerated" bitter. After all, I'm not looking to make a beer of which you can down three pints in the five minutes before the pub closes, but something to sip and enjoy attentively.
I really enjoy following this thread, soaking up all the info on English ales. Somewhat paradoxically, given the thread's title, I still haven't brewed any of the recipes mentioned in this thread or even added one to my to-brew-list.
I have very limited experience with English cask ales - when I lived in the UK for a year, as a student, drinking in pubs was prohibitively expensive, and back then "beer" meant either Hefeweizen or Helles to me, so I wasn't able to actually take it in anyways. I did like the bottled "Black Sheep Ale" though - I have since found it in Munich as well, and while I still liked it, I did not feel a sudden urge to try and replicate it.
I'm not sure if I actually want to brew an "authentic" English ale. I think what I'm looking for is a somewhat "exaggerated" bitter. After all, I'm not looking to make a beer of which you can down three pints in the five minutes before the pub closes, but something to sip and enjoy attentively.
Believe me, you want to brew one! A bitter on its peak, probably one to two months after brewing can be soooooooo good, you cannot imagine!
And the only way to get one when it's best, at least in Germany, is to fly to the UK and find a GOOD pub that treats it's beer and lines the right way.
... Or brew it yourself
With verdant IPA, you even have a decent English dry yeast!
And I'm going to finally buy his book.
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