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English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

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Good thread on Chevallier from the two commercial brewers who've probably used it most :



Steve Dunkley of Beer Nouveau suggests step mashes to increase efficiency, whereas Shane Swindells of the Cheshire Brewhouse suggests that the efficiency problem was more Crisp just (re)learning how to get the best from it, and that step mashing it is a waste as you lose much of the mouthfeel and flavour, he prefers a single mash, and cut it with Otter if you want more efficiency.
 
Good thread on Chevallier from the two commercial brewers who've probably used it most :



Steve Dunkley of Beer Nouveau suggests step mashes to increase efficiency, whereas Shane Swindells of the Cheshire Brewhouse suggests that the efficiency problem was more Crisp just (re)learning how to get the best from it, and that step mashing it is a waste as you lose much of the mouthfeel and flavour, he prefers a single mash, and cut it with Otter if you want more efficiency.


I'd like to know which temperatue he would target for single infusion mashes with Chevallier...
 
That's the first I've heard of a step mash reducing flavour mouthfeel and aroma. It can certainly change flavour and mouthfeel, but if anything it improves them imo. Certainly when I've step mashed chevalier it is still very obviously different from other malts.
 
And Steve's chipped in with his mash schedule for Chevallier :

So you can try that. OTOH, Shane is worth listening to for this stuff, he's been involved with the Crisp revival of Chevallier from the start and has won international awards for heritage brews.
 
Brewing since 1990.,This is the first beer I've ever made a second time to almost the exact same recipe. It gets a lot better with age. Finishing up a batch I bottled last March. Hops aren't British but they work. Made more today. If you question my process, I don't care, it works. Made my own invert syrup.

My mild. BIAB.
2.0 lb. Pale malt
12 oz. Light Munich malt
12 oz. white wheat malt
12 oz. invert sugar syrup made with turbinado
4.0 oz. chocolate malt (350L)
3.0 oz. crystal 240

Centennial 10.2% 0.30 oz. at 60 minutes

½ tsp gypsum and ½ tsp. salt added to the boil.

Lallemand Windsor yeast, rehydrated.

Mash-in at 153. Mash settled at 149F. Left in oven for 1-1/4 hours. Pulled bag, sparged bag, collecteda bout 4 gallons of wort. Boiled one hour. Added one quart of water during boil. Ended up with 3.75 gallons in the fermenter.

Added invert at end of boil. Chilled to 67F and pitched rehydrated yeast. OG 1.042
 
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Brewing since 1990.,This is the first beer I've ever made a second time to almost the exact same recipe. It gets a lot better with age. Finishing up a batch I bottled last March. Hops aren't British but they work. Made more today. If you question my process, I don't care, it works. Made my own invert syrup.

My mild. BIAB.
2.0 lb. Pale malt
12 oz. Light Munich malt
12 oz. white wheat malt
12 oz. invert sugar syrup made with turbinado
4.0 oz. chocolate malt (350L)
3.0 oz. crystal 240

Centennial 10.2% 0.30 oz. at 60 minutes

½ tsp gypsum and ½ tsp. salt added to the boil.

Lallemand Windsor yeast, rehydrated.

Mash-in at 153. Mash settled at 149F. Left in oven for 1-1/4 hours. Pulled bag, sparged bag, collecteda bout 4 gallons of wort. Boiled one hour. Added one quart of water during boil. Ended up with 3.75
gallons in the fermenter.

Added invert at end of boil. Chilled to 67F and pitched rehydrated yeast. OG 1.042

What size batch is this?

What's your water like?
 
Very much a look back in time. But I loved it.

Me too. Especially the part about real ale vs. the "stable but lifeless liquid" known as keg beer. Real ale, the ordinary house bitters that I first discovered on a trip to the UK in 1988, is the reason I home brew.

Afterthought: Is it blocked because the term "secondary fermentation" is used? :p
 
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Someone suggested it might be better on keg?

I guess it's Channel 4 trying to push people in the UK from Youtube onto their own streaming platform. Do you have a title I might be able to Google?
 
Ah, of course. It's notorious for not being available in the UK - it's not on All4 and blocked on Youtube - other than from sources that are dodgier than I would care to use.
 
Someone suggested it might be better on keg?

I guess it's Channel 4 trying to push people in the UK from Youtube onto their own streaming platform. Do you have a title I might be able to Google?
In the video Jackson visits a brewer of real ale. There is a cut to showing how big breweries kill further fermentation when they keg their beer making a "stable but lifeless liquid known in the UK as keg beer." This is contrasted to the better, proper and loving way real ale is kegged for further (secondary) fermentation, cask conditioning.

This was Discovery Channel's "The Beer Hunter" series. S01E06 "The Best of the British" Dec. 27, 1989. When I googled "The Beer Hunter 1989" I got ways to buy it and to view it not on You Tube.
 
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"kill further fermentation when they keg their beer making a "stable but lifeless liquid known in the UK as keg beer." This is contrasted to the better, proper and loving way real ale is kegged for further (secondary) fermentation, cask conditioning.

Pretty typical attitude/language of CAMRA-ites of that period, it is changing as they die off though.

This was Discovery Channel's "The Beer Hunter" series. S01E06 "The Best of the British" Dec. 27, 1989. When I googled "The Beer Hunter 1989" I got ways to buy it and to view it not on You Tube.

It's a Channel 4 show, which is why the UK rights are so tightly controlled compared to elsewhere. I'm not that bothered, but from here there's no way to watch it here based on the first page of Google results. As I say, I imagine Channel 4 expect you to watch it via their streaming service, which has quite a lot of really old stuff. So I'm mildly surprised it's not on there, I wonder if it might be on the naughty step - I'd imagine some of the comments from beer people at that time might not have aged well.
 
Pretty typical attitude/language of CAMRA-ites of that period, it is changing as they die off though.

notdeadyet.png
 
@Northern_Brewer
If you have a phone or tablet you should be able to download a free vpn something like melon works well.
Then you can pick your country and watch it. Works for us in NZ watching UK tv , BBC, ITV and channel 4, can't stand watching the NZ commentary on sport it's more than a little biased.
I might be able to download it I suppose and then put it on something like dropbox if the melon route doesn't work.
 
Pretty typical attitude/language of CAMRA-ites of that period, it is changing as they die off though.



It's a Channel 4 show, which is why the UK rights are so tightly controlled compared to elsewhere. I'm not that bothered, but from here there's no way to watch it here based on the first page of Google results. As I say, I imagine Channel 4 expect you to watch it via their streaming service, which has quite a lot of really old stuff. So I'm mildly surprised it's not on there, I wonder if it might be on the naughty step - I'd imagine some of the comments from beer people at that time might not have aged well.

Use a VPN - the YouTube link is :
 
I brewed an English-ish strong bitter a couple of months ago, using American pale ale malt (because I had it, and I didn't have British malt), 45L caramel wheat malt, homemade dark invert sugar, and Golding hops. Fermented with kveik yeast. I think I used way too much carawheat and invert, (about 10% each) because it's sort of a cartoon version of an English beer and the caramel and molasses flavors are too strong. But if I dilute it 50% will a tasteless watery lager like Natty Ice, it is very enjoyable, and still has decent body and head retention. And my HB lasts twice as long that way ;)

When this bag of pale ale malt runs out, (it's about gone now) I may get some British malt and try again, using only half as much invert and caramel malt. Because I really like the beer when I tone it way down.
 
What are your thoughts on using modern hops in bitters? Like subbing Citra for EKGs in a nice 3.5% golden bitter.
 
I've done it a couple of times, but in small amounts, just to get a hint of something more citrusy/tropical. Recently did a bitter with harlequin, a newer variety british hop, which turned out very well. If camra would approve of it though I don't know.
 
There's plenty of cask beer in the UK these days that features New World hops - although there's rather more from the antipodes than you would typically see in the US. Jeff Alworth has a nice series of articles about a trip to the UK in 2019 that starts with a celebration of these cask hazies :
https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2019/9/10/juicy-bitter-on-cask
But for the sake of communication, I don't think anyone would really refer to them as "bitter", a term which does kinda imply traditional European hops. And they tend to be more like 4% give or take. But most of all you need to respect the balance that is key to British beer - the US attitude of moooorrrrrreeeee hops just completely misses the point. Jeff's talked about this in his latest article and a Twitter thread on why US breweries are so bad at British beers :


https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2021/9/14/beers-rosetta-stone-national-tradition
 
What are your thoughts on using modern hops in bitters? Like subbing Citra for EKGs in a nice 3.5% golden bitter.

I keep thinking I'll add a touch of Mandarina Bavaria to my next ESB-like recipe. Haven't tried it yet. Last brew I ran the 1968 yeast (Wyeast ESB) at 71 deg. F, hoping for fruity esters, but it didn't deliver. Looking at 1318 (London III) next. If that doesn't do it I'll probably start playing with a little bit of who-knows-what in a whirlpool addition. Mandarina Bavaria has my interest. Was hoping for something "berry" like but maybe tangerine would go well.
 
I keep thinking I'll add a touch of Mandarina Bavaria to my next ESB-like recipe. Haven't tried it yet. Last brew I ran the 1968 yeast (Wyeast ESB) at 71 deg. F, hoping for fruity esters, but it didn't deliver. Looking at 1318 (London III) next. If that doesn't do it I'll probably start playing with a little bit of who-knows-what in a whirlpool addition. Mandarina Bavaria has my interest. Was hoping for something "berry" like but maybe tangerine would go well.
what did your grain bill and hop usage look like?

Once I started brewing using @Northern_Brewer recommendation of 90% base malt and 10% sugar and/or crystal malts I started getting much more yeast character. Not too much late hops and allow the beer to age a month or so also helps. I get more character from 1318 and 1469 then I do from 1968. WLP041 seems to be easy to get fruitiness, a bit too close to banana for my taste though.
 
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