English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

[Miraculix]

I just bought his mild, his bitter, his ak and his historic Australian beers book. I shall have recipes to brew till the end of my life now.

 

[user 263363]

I don’t know how I haven’t found this thread sooner. Unfortunately my area doesn’t get a ton of commercial English beers, but I’ve loved everyone I’ve tried. I’ve attempted a few myself and my favorite by far has been @Miraculix Best recipe.

I have a dark mild scheduled for this weekend and I just ordered Ron Pattinsons 1909 style guide.

 

[Miraculix]

I don’t know how I haven’t found this thread sooner. Unfortunately my area doesn’t get a ton of commercial English beers, but I’ve loved everyone I’ve tried. I’ve attempted a few myself and my favorite by far has been @Miraculix Best recipe.

I have a dark mild scheduled for this weekend and I just ordered Ron Pattinsons 1909 style guide.

Thank you very much, I am happy that you like it as much as myself does!

Btw. I have simplified the mash schedule a bit. 60 minutes at 65 degrees Celsius followed by 20 minutes at 77 pretty much does the same thing as the more complicated schedule in the thread.

 

[cyberbackpacker]

I own 14 of Ron Pattinson's (@patto1ro) books in printed form (most recently AK and Strong! Vol. 2 (already owned Strong! in hardback)), and every one is an invaluable treasure of brewing history and knowledge.

 

[duelerx]

I own 14 of Ron Pattinson's (@patto1ro) books in printed form (most recently AK and Strong! Vol. 2 (already owned Strong! in hardback)), and every one is an invaluable treasure of brewing history and knowledge.

Just recently i listened an interview of Ron Pattinson about AK beers, caught my eye about AK beers that i would like to read the book and brew one sometime.

Also i highly recommend his British Lager series.

 

[Witherby]

Just recently i listened an interview of Ron Pattinson about AK beers, caught my eye about AK beers that i would like to read the book and brew one sometime.

Then you definitely want to read this thread:
Your favourite AK recipe?

 

[Snuffy]

“I used to like Timothy Taylor Landlord. Haven’t been able to find it here in Southern California the past few years.
I’ve brewed a clone a few times loosely based on the Northern Brewer Innkeeper recipe. A great beer!”

AHS has the Tim Taylor clone. I just brewed their Worthington’s White Shield and Bishop’s Finger clones - with Notty - and both are excellent.
https://www.austinhomebrew.com/Land...ALL-GRAIN-Homebrew-Ingredient-Kit_p_3474.html

 

[DuncB]

Timothy Taylors is not the same as it used to be. Was a superb bottled beer but now is weaker and just not quite the same. Brew a clone and feel you've done better and watch the Timothy Taylors videos very interesting.

 

[shoreman]

I’m about to get into some English style recipes and have a big sack of pilsner malt to get through. Any tips on using it in these styles? I’ve made some goldens with EKGs that have worked out with pils and British yeast but not sure if anyone compensates for anything missing in the base malt.

 

[Miraculix]

I’m about to get into some English style recipes and have a big sack of pilsner malt to get through. Any tips on using it in these styles? I’ve made some goldens with EKGs that have worked out with pils and British yeast but not sure if anyone compensates for anything missing in the base malt.

Add five percent medium to dark crystal and you won't taste a difference. Maybe also five percent medium invert.

Might be a bit different in a blonde ale. Some people report that adding 20% Munich or Vienna helps to give some breadiness.

 

[cire]

I’m about to get into some English style recipes and have a big sack of pilsner malt to get through. Any tips on using it in these styles? I’ve made some goldens with EKGs that have worked out with pils and British yeast but not sure if anyone compensates for anything missing in the base malt.

There are plenty of current day British ales made from 100% well modified pilsner malt, but as said, just add some darker malt(s) into the mix and you good to go.

 

[shoreman]

There are plenty of current day British ales made from 100% well modified pilsner malt, but as said, just add some darker malt(s) into the mix and you good to go.

thanks, can you point me towards a few of them? Doing some research currently

 

[cire]

Yes, but they are mostly current day rather than traditional beers and mostly with American hops.

Firstly Jarl which is very pale with Citra hops. Another similar beer is Clasper's Citra. Both are draft beers but also bottled. There are others, but the brewing business is in a state of flux with the pandemic, with some not back to full service. However, several large traditional breweries use very pale malts made to their own specification that for all practical purposes be a lager or Pilsner malt.

A well known RIS is made with about a third of the grain bill being Pilsner malt and I have often made Guinness with it in place of pale malt when you can't really notice much difference.

 

[shoreman]

Thanks for the info!

 

[kmarkstevens]

I would consider a small amount of biscuit or melanoidum as well. 3-5%. couple of ounces for 5 gallons. Helps round out the flavor

 

[Northern_Brewer]

A nice pic from Simpsons showing the difference in heads between the heritage 6-row landrace bere (left), Golden Promise (middle) and modern variety Laureate (right). They have more about bere on their blog (and various other articles of interest to barley geeks)
https://www.simpsonsmalt.co.uk/blog/bere-barley-using-the-heritage-barley-as-malt-in-brewing/

 

[DuncB]

Goes to show check your mill gap and grain crush with new grains.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Tapped the 5 Points Bitter clone. I'm not a big fan of fuggles, so not going to be brewing this one again.

 

[schmurf]

Tapped the 5 Points Bitter clone. I'm not a big fan of fuggles, so not going to be brewing this one again.

Well at least you tried! Personally I love it. I hear now and then people not being a fan of fuggles, more often than other hops.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Got a question regarding a Scotch ale, not really English but Brittish at least. Been thinking about doing a variant of Skotrat's traquair house ale clone per this recipe Traquair House Ale Clone - Wee Heavy but with MO as base and 1.5% UK chocolate malt.
I scaled down the recipe to my preffered batch size (12L in to fermenter), and after some calculations figured out 2.5L of first runnings would be a reasonable amount to boil down to 3-4 deciliter or so
When I brew this way, do I simply add 2.5L extra to my sparge water to compensate for the wort I boiled down? To me atleast this seems as the most reasonable thing to do but someone else might have brewed something like this using the boil down method and might chime in.

 

[cire]

It can't be said that I've never boiled two gallons of wort down to a pint, but when I did, it was because I'd forgotten about it, with a thermal cutout saving the equipment from total destruction. On that occasion it was with low gravity late runnings for a yeast starter, Had those been first runnings (>1070) I hesitate to imagine the outcome.

Otherwise your modus operandi seems totally logical, except I would suggest you might consider reducing more like 4 litres to 1.5 to avoid having to scrape the pot to extract the result.

Good luck, Traquair House is only just across the border and English brewers copied many advancements from the Scots. As long as you don't burn the wort I'm sure you'll produce something close to the actual article.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Sounds like a plan, I guess I'll try to collect 4 liters of first runnings and boil it down to 1.
I guess even with adding 3 extra liter of sparge water, my starting boil volume will be about 1 liter less than BS estimates, wich seems about what I should aim for, since I will add the extra liter once the smaller wort is boiled down. Am I thinking right? With stuff like this it can be nice to just present my thoughts to someone to see if I get my thinking right.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I would add back in whatever volume of water you boil off.

 

[DBhomebrew]

FWIW, Skotrat's recipe might make a very fine beer, but the kettle caramelization is not a method used by Traquair. Otherwise, Skotrat's is rather close to the one the current Lady of Traquair shared for Alworth's book. Having brewed Alworth's recipe and compared it to a true Traquair House, I'd say a lack of oak was apparent but even with just a straight 2hr boil it was plenty malty enough. 98%MO/2%roasted.

On another point, I just did a kettle caramelization in order to account for a mistakenly large sparge. After reducing ~4L down to ~1L in a side kettle, I mixed in wort from the big kettle to be sure I collected all the sticky goodness from the small reduction pot.

 

[patto1ro]

FWIW, Skotrat's recipe might make a very fine beer, but the kettle caramelization is not a method used by Traquair. Otherwise, Skotrat's is rather close to the one the current Lady of Traquair shared for Alworth's book. Having brewed Alworth's recipe and compared it to a true Traquair House, I'd say a lack of oak was apparent but even with just a straight 2hr boil it was plenty malty enough. 98%MO/2%roasted.

On another point, I just did a kettle caramelization in order to account for a mistakenly large sparge. After reducing ~4L down to ~1L in a side kettle, I mixed in wort from the big kettle to be sure I collected all the sticky goodness from the small reduction pot.

I've never come across any Scottish brewery that used kettle caramelisation. If they wanted to darken a beer, they usually just threw in caramel.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I've never come across any Scottish brewery that used kettle caramelisation. If they wanted to darken a beer, they usually just threw in caramel.

I'm hearing this more and more often of late, after hearing for decades that reduction was required whereby to capture the profile of the Wee Heavy Scotch Ale style. I've also learned of late that no self respecting Scotsman likely ever heard of the style being referred to as 'Wee Heavy'.

 

[patto1ro]

I'm hearing this more and more often of late, after hearing for decades that reduction was required whereby to capture the profile of the Wee Heavy Scotch Ale style. I've also learned of late that no self respecting Scotsman likely ever heard of the style being referred to as 'Wee Heavy'.

Wee Heavy was the nickname of a specific beer, Fowler's 12 Guinea Ale. The wee referring to the nip bottle it came in.

 

[kevin58]

@patto1ro AKA Ron Pattinson (read his books on Scottish brewing if you want to learn the truth) is right. Wort reduction or caramelization is not wrong as a technique in and of itself but it is not Scottish. The Scots, on average, boiled no longer than their London counterparts and at times utilized shorter boils. Again, see Ron's books for actual data to back that up. By all means use the technique if you like the results but I wish we could get brewers to stop perpetuating the myth that caramelization is how you make a Scottish beer.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

As I understand it(correct me if wrong), the wort concentration thing is originally a way for homebrewers to mimic the scottish use of copper boiling kettles and brewers caramel. Wich for me is a more viable way to go than importing expensive sugar products.
I have another variant in the works with homemade invert #3 and crystal, 8% each and plan to in the future brew both and compare.

 

[DBhomebrew]

As I understand it(correct me if wrong), the wort concentration thing is originally a way for homebrewers to mimic the scottish use of copper boiling kettles and brewers caramel. Wich for me is a more viable way to go than importing expensive sugar products.
I have another variant in the works with homemade invert #3 and crystal, 8% each and plan to in the future brew both and compare.

In the case of the beer you are approximating, Traquair uses 2% roasted barley for color adjustment...