English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

[cire]

@DuncB
Yes, a good King Keg is a mighty asset. Unfortunately, mine is only moderate, so is mostly a last resort. I should tackle what I think is the problem of an undulating top rim, then wonder if temperature and loading plays some part as it can take several attempts to make a good seal.

I agree that Ron Pattison's blog is probably a better option for @hout17 and all, when compared with the Durden Park book. Nothing against the "Old British Beers ...", but buying the first issue upon publication and not brewed one recipe, use mine as a reference book. It isn't old school stuff, more historical beers that might not be what most people want.

I'm a Graham Wheeler fan and have been fortunate enough to correspond and converse with him until his untimely death. In one of his books he wrote that if it wasn't for the range of varieties of hops, most British Ales would taste more or less the same. Since reading that I've concentrated on a basic grist of pale malt with 5 to 10% unmalted adjunct (Flaked maize, barley, torrified wheat or combination of those) and 5 to 15% invert sugar types 1, 2 and or 3. The hops are always noble types, mostly from Britain and Europe, but not exclusively so as some American hops in small amounts at the beginning or end of the boil can just give that little extra without dominating as they can in some present day commercial beers.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Also, I may do a split batch next time with Manchester vs WLP026. I believe it was Northern Brewer that tossed out that some folks posit that WLP026 is the "true" Boddy yeast.

I don't think I would have said that, but "WLP026 might be worth trying in Boddies as about the only POF- Beer2 yeast available from the main US yeast suppliers" would be the sort of thing I say. That or Omega Gulo if you want more attenuation.

I'd go to shut up about barclay perkins and see what Ron Pattinson has to say. He has the real info on old beers, your mileage might vary on that homebrew club recipe book.
I reckon that it will be fairly old school stuff, malt extract, unnamed hops and yeast. Post a recipe when you get it.

The Durden Park Circle were the pre-internet version of Ron, they were very much about historical recipes.

 

[hout17]

@hout17
I'd go to shut up about barclay perkins and see what Ron Pattinson has to say. He has the real info on old beers, your mileage might vary on that homebrew club recipe book.
I reckon that it will be fairly old school stuff, malt extract, unnamed hops and yeast. Post a recipe when you get it.

Thanks yeah I love Ron's blog and I have his vintage beer book as well. I just thought this might be an interesting read and hopefully a recipe or two worth trying. I'll definitely post a recipe when I get it.

I agree that Ron Pattison's blog is probably a better option for @hout17 and all, when compared with the Durden Park book. Nothing against the "Old British Beers ...", but buying the first issue upon publication and not brewed one recipe, use mine as a reference book. It isn't old school stuff, more historical beers that might not be what most people want.

I'm a Graham Wheeler fan and have been fortunate enough to correspond and converse with him until his untimely death. In one of his books he wrote that if it wasn't for the range of varieties of hops, most British Ales would taste more or less the same. Since reading that I've concentrated on a basic grist of pale malt with 5 to 10% unmalted adjunct (Flaked maize, barley, torrified wheat or combination of those) and 5 to 15% invert sugar types 1, 2 and or 3. The hops are always noble types, mostly from Britain and Europe, but not exclusively so as some American hops in small amounts at the beginning or end of the boil can just give that little extra without dominating as they can in some present day commercial beers.

Great thanks for your input on the book either way it should be interesting. I'll also look into some Graham Wheeler literature as well. I've got making invert worked out it's fun to make.

I am looking for historical british recipes in this instance so this may fit the bill for me.

The Durden Park Circle were the pre-internet version of Ron, they were very much about historical recipes.

Thanks for your input I ordered their updated 2013 version looking forward to checking it out when it gets here which may be a little while.

 

[DuncB]

I enjoyed the Graham Wheeler books immensely but they too are both with the same person I leant my Dave Line books to. Damm my generosity and him for not sending them back to me. But I'll get them next time I'm back in the UK for sure.

 

[shoreman]

sorry to say that my experience with the norcalbrewing solutions speidel hack was a complete and utter failure. It didn't work. My first order missed some key parts, so I had to place a second order along with associated shipping charges. I was basically told well now you have some spare parts. Rubbed me the wrong way and at the end of the day didn't work. Your mileage may vary.

Does the system work well?

it would be nice if someone in the US imported some of those polypins but the market for real ale homebrew supplies I’m thinking is pretty small, who knows why?

 

[Miraculix]

Does the system work well?

it would be nice if someone in the US imported some of those polypins but the market for real ale homebrew supplies I’m thinking is pretty small, who knows why?

I thought you got the cubitainers in the US?

 

[shoreman]

Yeah I did, the polypins are different, check Northern Brewer’s post above.

it basically a plastic barrel with a co2 hookup on the top.

 

[shoreman]

I just ordered a book called 'Old British Beers and How to Make them'. Anybody have a favorite recipe from this book? From the looks of it I'm excited to see what's inside.

I have that book and have only brewed one beer out it - the Amber Small beer. It’s an interesting read but the recipes have some odd malts like Amber & Lager malts listed - the recipes are fairly simple. I think I toasted my own malt for one of the recipes

 

[McMullan]

Define "better" I think - processes such as the proliferation of spoilage microorganisms will happen more slowly at low temperatures, but too cold and you will start precipitating out proteins etc that would normally be present and contributing to the flavour. And serving much below cask range just kills the flavour.

On another topic, I've just come across this puff piece about Lees reaching the 5000th generation of their yeast (with a cameo appearance by Paul Jones of Cloudwater) in 2019 which I missed at the time. They've only been repitching it since 1967 so a baby compared to the yeasts used by some British family brewers. Only really works with multistrains though, you need that diversity to give it resilience against mutation.

That sounds interesting, @Northern_Brewer, how does inter-strain diversity promote resilience against mutation? Mutation being a random process generally, I'd expect any mutation arising and offering a selective advantage to the mutant to be selected for in a competitive environment like brewery wort. And why multi-strain brewery cultures are unlikely to be stable over very long periods. I'd say it's more likely these multi-strain brewery slurries have changed quit a lot over time.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

@DuncB

In one of his books he wrote that if it wasn't for the range of varieties of hops, most British Ales would taste more or less the same.

Should that not be varieties of yeast?

 

[Nick_G]

I have one of these at home: Shakespeare Hand Pull
It essentially dispenses under CO2 pressure but the hand pull does something clever to dispense it as though it has come from a cask. Beer does not oxidize as it would do in a cask and there is no additional wastage from beer sitting in a hand pull cylinder.

 

[cire]

Should that not be varieties of yeast?

Actually no. The word that was wrong was "most", which should have been many.

Graham's books were aimed at homebrewers and he didn't advise specific yeasts. Graham was a canny fellow and his books were written to explain brewing and encourage homebrewing. For several years he accumulated yeasts from breweries with thoughts of marketing, but gave up on the project.

The period of British brewing that has interested me most is from shortly before WWI to late sixties/early seventies. My own research of regional brewers of that period confirmed that grists of pale ales indeed were much the same at any particular time. Pale malt, flaked maize and invert sugar was preferred, but the quantities would change in line with prices and when maize wasn't available, barley or oats would be used as replacement. Currently, torrified wheat seems to be most popular for adding body and head and sugar is no doubt out of fashion through cost. In the early part of that period, hops were largely Kent's and Hereford's, but what those were is still subject to debate. Two nearest local breweries used both, but in the reverse order to each other. As time advanced, hops became named not by the county or farrner, but by variety and beers diversified. Even when the beers looked quite different in colour, the grists were very similar, just some black malt or caramel thrown in to darken a weaker beer, or a bit of crystal added to bottled beers.

When I started drinking, early sixties, beers could be quite different by region, possibly because specific yeasts were common within each region. Yorkshire yeasts were used in Lancashire and other adjacent areas, but that's another story.

 

[eshea3]

I’ve looked at these “man cans” that come in various sizes and you can buy a connector for keg fittings. No recommendation of any business or no affiliation, just trying to show the product:

https://www.amazon.com/Growler-Pres...cphy=9007360&hvtargid=pla-1251493947036&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/Double-Dispe...ocphy=9007360&hvtargid=pla-676862953673&psc=1

I've used these with some success.

https://www.homebrewing.org/Mini-Keg-with-Tap_p_2959.html

 

[Northern_Brewer]

That sounds interesting, @Northern_Brewer, how does inter-strain diversity promote resilience against mutation? Mutation being a random process generally, I'd expect any mutation arising and offering a selective advantage to the mutant to be selected for in a competitive environment like brewery wort. And why multi-strain brewery cultures are unlikely to be stable over very long periods. I'd say it's more likely these multi-strain brewery slurries have changed quit a lot over time.

Talk to people like Graham Stewart if you want the full story, but I'd start with the observation that these English brewery multistrains are pretty stable at a macro level, it is pretty rare for them to "go off" in the way that you might expect from a runaway mutation. Whereas it's a commonplace that the typical single strains from White Labs go off within 6-10 generations. And eg see John Kimmich talking here about how he has taken the original Conan out to 40 generations but it became cyclical producing the "good" flavours, then fading out and then they came back again a few generations later; now he only takes it to 10 generations (and blends batches from different yeast generations).

My understanding from talking to people who use multistrains is that they see far less of that kind of effect at a macro level - partly just through the dilution effect of each strain only being 10% of the total or whatever, but individual strains do come and go a bit within the blend, but stay pretty stable long term. There may be a lot of turnover at the micro-genetic level, but it just isn't that apparent at the macro level. That sounds like most of the "breakout" mutations for a given environment have already happened over the course of tonnes of yeast being propagated over decades. So the mixture is now at a relatively evolutionarily-stable equilibrium which is fairly well stablilised against the ingress of new mutants. On the other hand, moving to a new environment can completely screw things - the Boddies yeast just went to crap anytime they tried to use it away from Strangeways. And eg the Adnams multistrain is no longer stable since they "simplified" it in the 1970s, they have to continuously recreate it from the individual strains.

So we're getting into the world of Hamilton and Maynard Smith, of mixed populations that are stable in the long-term. It's a bit similar to how the two "strains" of humans - with and without Y chromosomes, or "men" and "women" as they are more often known* - manage to keep a pretty stable 1:1 ratio in the population, there may be all sorts of stabilising selection in operation.

* to a first approximation, I know it's more complicated than that once you get onto XXY and the like...

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Actually no. The word that was wrong was "most", which should have been many.

Graham's books were aimed at homebrewers and he didn't advise specific yeasts. Graham was a canny fellow and his books were written to explain brewing and encourage homebrewing. For several years he accumulated yeasts from breweries with thoughts of marketing, but gave up on the project.

The period of British brewing that has interested me most is from shortly before WWI to late sixties/early seventies. My own research of regional brewers of that period confirmed that grists of pale ales indeed were much the same at any particular time. Pale malt, flaked maize and invert sugar was preferred, but the quantities would change in line with prices and when maize wasn't available, barley or oats would be used as replacement. Currently, torrified wheat seems to be most popular for adding body and head and sugar is no doubt out of fashion through cost. In the early part of that period, hops were largely Kent's and Hereford's, but what those were is still subject to debate. Two nearest local breweries used both, but in the reverse order to each other. As time advanced, hops became named not by the county or farrner, but by variety and beers diversified. Even when the beers looked quite different in colour, the grists were very similar, just some black malt or caramel thrown in to darken a weaker beer, or a bit of crystal added to bottled beers.

When I started drinking, early sixties, beers could be quite different by region, possibly because specific yeasts were common within each region. Yorkshire yeasts were used in Lancashire and other adjacent areas, but that's another story.

Well that seems a bit odd to me as a lot of the beers have Goldings and or Fuggles, and it's the brewery yeasts that make the most difference. Coupled with the use of different crystal malts and sometimes a bit of chocolate or black malt.

 

[McMullan]

Talk to people like Graham Stewart if you want the full story, but I'd start with the observation that these English brewery multistrains are pretty stable at a macro level, it is pretty rare for them to "go off" in the way that you might expect from a runaway mutation. Whereas it's a commonplace that the typical single strains from White Labs go off within 6-10 generations. And eg see John Kimmich talking here about how he has taken the original Conan out to 40 generations but it became cyclical producing the "good" flavours, then fading out and then they came back again a few generations later; now he only takes it to 10 generations (and blends batches from different yeast generations).

My understanding from talking to people who use multistrains is that they see far less of that kind of effect at a macro level - partly just through the dilution effect of each strain only being 10% of the total or whatever, but individual strains do come and go a bit within the blend, but stay pretty stable long term. There may be a lot of turnover at the micro-genetic level, but it just isn't that apparent at the macro level. That sounds like most of the "breakout" mutations for a given environment have already happened over the course of tonnes of yeast being propagated over decades. So the mixture is now at a relatively evolutionarily-stable equilibrium which is fairly well stablilised against the ingress of new mutants. On the other hand, moving to a new environment can completely screw things - the Boddies yeast just went to crap anytime they tried to use it away from Strangeways. And eg the Adnams multistrain is no longer stable since they "simplified" it in the 1970s, they have to continuously recreate it from the individual strains.

So we're getting into the world of Hamilton and Maynard Smith, of mixed populations that are stable in the long-term. It's a bit similar to how the two "strains" of humans - with and without Y chromosomes, or "men" and "women" as they are more often known* - manage to keep a pretty stable 1:1 ratio in the population, there may be all sorts of stabilising selection in operation.

* to a first approximation, I know it's more complicated than that once you get onto XXY and the like...

Are there any data at all that show these multi-strain slurries have remained stable over extended time periods, in what are potentially very competitive microbial systems? Otherwise it's just heresy, interesting abstract theory and head brewers telling romantic stories. I can just see a head brewer grinning whilst telling mesmerised visitors how old and special the brewery’s multi-strain yeast are. I gave up trialing multi-strain pitchings some time ago, when it became apparent it wasn't worth the additional effort. I think it's more to do with the inevitable outcome of cultural practices (including sloppy ones) and resistance against foreign discoveries and practices to manage single strains, i.e., control and consistency. I've been able to maintain pure yeast strains for several years without noting any 'drift'. It's a bit worrying some professional brewers can't. But I'm always happy to be disproved, if data show otherwise.

 

[Witherby]

Before I built a setup with a rocket pump and a propane regulator cask breather so I can condition in and dispense from a keg, I fooled around with one-gallon cubitainers. I would fill them and add priming solution and squeeze out the air and let them "cube condition" at room temp. The problem is that they (unlike a more rigid cask) expand so the the CO2 isn't all going into solution. And the other problem is that they might burst! So for a while I was using a spunding valve to deal with that second problem.

After a week or two of conditioning I would then put them in the fridge to get the CO2 into solution, which seemed to work as they would shrink back down to normal size. Serving by gravity is definitely a three handed job as you really want to squeeze the cube as you are dispensing to prevent air from glugging back in.

I was very tempted to try and use a 12L or 20L Speidel as a pressure barrel since I already ferment in a 30L Speidel and have the NorCal "Speidel Gas In with Pressure Relief Valve": Speidel Ball Lock Gas In with Pressure Relief Valve. NorCal Brewing Solutions

I use the gas in for closed transfers to a keg, but I would think this would work well for gravity pours with a propane regulator cask breather.

Here's my current setup, which sits right on top of a keg-conditioned keg:

 

[cire]

Well that seems a bit odd to me as a lot of the beers have Goldings and or Fuggles, and it's the brewery yeasts that make the most difference. Coupled with the use of different crystal malts and sometimes a bit of chocolate or black malt.

Indeed, but I was quoting from one of Graham's books when many ingredients available to the homebrewer would be different to those used by the brewer whose recipe he replicated. More so when looking at historical recipes when many breweries malted their own. Graham was generalising and I understood his perspective.

Assuming British hops of that period were Goldings and Fuggles, could be risky, Ron Patinson has touched on this recently. I'm not disagreeing that different yeasts makes beers different, I'm a convert to the point I won't use White Labs or Wyeast and source my yeasts from a business that directly supplies British breweries and understand why Graham wouldn't disturb a hornet's nest for his publications.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Indeed, but I was quoting from one of Graham's books when many ingredients available to the homebrewer would be different to those used by the brewer whose recipe he replicated. More so when looking at historical recipes when many breweries malted their own. Graham was generalising and I understood his perspective.

Assuming British hops of that period were Goldings and Fuggles, could be risky, Ron Patinson has touched on this recently. I'm not disagreeing that different yeasts makes beers different, I'm a convert to the point I won't use White Labs or Wyeast and source my yeasts from a business that directly supplies British breweries and understand why Graham wouldn't disturb a hornet's nest for his publications.

Fair dinkum, though traditional British breweries will generally say their unique yeast is/was what makes/made their beer special and different, from what I've picked up here in the UK. And finding a good yeast match is generally the key to brewing something that resembles a classic British ale. Fuller's, use the yeast. Boddingtons, no chance. Etc.

 

[cire]

I have one of these at home: Shakespeare Hand Pull
It essentially dispenses under CO2 pressure but the hand pull does something clever to dispense it as though it has come from a cask. Beer does not oxidize as it would do in a cask and there is no additional wastage from beer sitting in a hand pull cylinder.

I got one too, basically a valve and a damper that makes serving from a keg under gas pressure appear to come from a cask by hand pump.

They do use the same frame as the traditional beer engine and I modified mine with some extra work due to it being an older model. They provided all the parts necessary with advice of what was needed by telephone. It works great and there's a full pin awaiting its attention shortly.

 

[cire]

Fair dinkum, though traditional British breweries will generally say their unique yeast is/was what makes/made their beer special and different, from what I've picked up here in the UK. And finding a good yeast match is generally the key to brewing something that resembles a classic British ale. Fuller's, use the yeast. Boddingtons, no chance. Etc.

Have you tried Brewlab with care and asked if they have what you desire?

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Have you tried Brewlab with care and asked if they have what you desire?

I've had a few yeasts from them yeah, not recently though.

 

[ba-brewer]

I recall seeing a limited number of strains available through a homebrew site a while back. Does Brewlab still provide slants to homebrewers?

 

[kmarkstevens]

I don't think I would have said that, but "WLP026 might be worth trying in Boddies as about the only POF- Beer2 yeast available from the main US yeast suppliers" would be the sort of thing I say. That or Omega Gulo if you want more attenuation.

Yes, thank you, I believe that would have been a more accurate quote than my poorly remembered short hand.

I do have the WLP026 in my library from the great purge, which I believe was now 3 years ago.

Would love to get a King Keg or something like that. I have previously looked and they just don't seem to be available in the US. If I ever make it to the UK for a beer tour, I'm gonna save room in luggage to bring one or two back.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Are there any data at all that show these multi-strain slurries have remained stable over extended time periods, in what are potentially very competitive microbial systems?

As yet there may be not much solid data, but I'm not sure you're thinking hard enough about the numbers involved. These may be competitive environments, but the sheer numbers of organisms involved, in a pretty stable environment over decades, suggests that they should be near the local adaptive peak for that environment. Where do mutations come from that haven't already been tried in that environment?

A typical family brewery is producing 100,000hl per year. Say they're pitching 6 x10^9 cells/litre, they're pitching 6 x 10^9 x 100,000 x 100 = 6 x 10^16 cells per year. Assume tetraploid, so 2.4 x 10^17 haploid genomes.

A haploid yeast genome is just over 1.2 x 10^7 base pairs, and Dutta et al estimate the mutation rate in an unstressed, newly-hybridised yeast is 1.8x 10^-10 mutations per base pairs per division (but other papers have suggested that rate goes up considerably in the more stressful environment of alcoholic solutions, gah, I can't find it now but it's like x5 or x10-fold). So on average you will see 1 mutation per division in every 463 haploid genomes in an unstressed environment.

Which if I've got my sums right and if that mutation rate applied, means that the average family brewer's "starters" will see 5 x 10 ^ 14 mutations in one year in their first generation - and that's before you add in additional divisions, extra mutation due to alcohol stress and so on. If they were just single-site mutations that would be 40 million mutations at every base. It's hard to see where new mutations conferring significant extra fitness would come from, they've almost certainly been tried before. Obviously there's many different mutations beyond single points, but it gives you an idea - and patterns of "big" mutations appear to be non-random according to the Dunham lab among others.

I'm not aware of anyone working specifically on UK multistrains, but the drop in sequencing costs means there's a fair bit being done on evolution during fermentation. But they tend to be on bought-in strains, which will have come out of a freezer and then had 50-odd divisions in one environment at the yeast lab before moving to a rather different environment at a brewery, so when you see mutations happening in Chico like Large et al did, one wonders if that's not just the yeast adapting to the new environment. So that's rather different to a British family brewer continually repitching into essentially the same wort year after year.

It's only an undergrad project, but this suggests that if two strains have co-evolved, then it is possible to maintain what starts as a 50:50 blend over 5 repitches in 2-week ferments - but the proportion is quite sensitive to environmental conditions, and a blend of less-well-adapted strains just falls apart within the first fermentation.

I'll agree there's nothing conclusive, but at the same time I don't think you can dismiss it as just "interesting abstract theory".

 

[cire]

I recall seeing a limited number of strains available through a homebrew site a while back. Does Brewlab still provide slants to homebrewers?

Yes, Brewlab's most popular slants can be obtained from the Jolly Brewer. I've obtained other specific strains from Brewlab and am still working my way through those. They did go quiet and not reply to emails a while back that I assumed was caused by Covid.

 

[McMullan]

As yet there may be not much solid data, but I'm not sure you're thinking hard enough about the numbers involved. These may be competitive environments, but the sheer numbers of organisms involved, in a pretty stable environment over decades, suggests that they should be near the local adaptive peak for that environment. Where do mutations come from that haven't already been tried in that environment?

A typical family brewery is producing 100,000hl per year. Say they're pitching 6 x10^9 cells/litre, they're pitching 6 x 10^9 x 100,000 x 100 = 6 x 10^16 cells per year. Assume tetraploid, so 2.4 x 10^17 haploid genomes.

A haploid yeast genome is just over 1.2 x 10^7 base pairs, and Dutta et al estimate the mutation rate in an unstressed, newly-hybridised yeast is 1.8x 10^-10 mutations per base pairs per division (but other papers have suggested that rate goes up considerably in the more stressful environment of alcoholic solutions, gah, I can't find it now but it's like x5 or x10-fold). So on average you will see 1 mutation per division in every 463 haploid genomes in an unstressed environment.

Which if I've got my sums right and if that mutation rate applied, means that the average family brewer's "starters" will see 5 x 10 ^ 14 mutations in one year in their first generation - and that's before you add in additional divisions, extra mutation due to alcohol stress and so on. If they were just single-site mutations that would be 40 million mutations at every base. It's hard to see where new mutations conferring significant extra fitness would come from, they've almost certainly been tried before. Obviously there's many different mutations beyond single points, but it gives you an idea - and patterns of "big" mutations appear to be non-random according to the Dunham lab among others.

I'm not aware of anyone working specifically on UK multistrains, but the drop in sequencing costs means there's a fair bit being done on evolution during fermentation. But they tend to be on bought-in strains, which will have come out of a freezer and then had 50-odd divisions in one environment at the yeast lab before moving to a rather different environment at a brewery, so when you see mutations happening in Chico like Large et al did, one wonders if that's not just the yeast adapting to the new environment. So that's rather different to a British family brewer continually repitching into essentially the same wort year after year.

It's only an undergrad project, but this suggests that if two strains have co-evolved, then it is possible to maintain what starts as a 50:50 blend over 5 repitches in 2-week ferments - but the proportion is quite sensitive to environmental conditions, and a blend of less-well-adapted strains just falls apart within the first fermentation.

I'll agree there's nothing conclusive, but at the same time I don't think you can dismiss it as just "interesting abstract theory".

So just more theory then. And very controversial, too, in terms of mutation models. I’m not sure I’d want to offer that as any form of supporting evidence for mysterious claims made by breweries and their marketing department’s spiel, which likely has more to do with selling beer than genuinely fortuitous outcomes of unconsciously repitching slurry for decades.

Having slept on it, I can divide my skepticism here. There’s the logic among home brewers (once including myself) that pitching multiple yeast strains is going to add some desirable, unique complexity in the end product. Something demonstrably worth the extra effort. Something 'special'. As I already typed I no longer accept this to be true, based on my experience involving many trials. Biased by my own taste mainly, to be fair. But this isn’t necessarily the same as serially repitching a brewery culture over at least several decades. If the brewery's yeast went bad it was replaced by calling in a favour. No big deal really, the main focus was producing beer and selling it. I think that's the hard reality fogged in mysterious, romantic stories.

For those that have apparently remained good for long periods, how do we know the beers produced haven’t changed due to the yeast population evolving ‘this’ way and ‘that’ over time, becoming a mixed population? I’m not talking about abrupt changes, ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Gradual change. This is a more realistic model, which doesn’t require anything to hide behind. We both know what would likely happen if a pure brewer’s yeast colony were cultured up and serially repitched by the bucket load over years. It would diversify and become a mixed population. Genetic diversity accumulates over time. Not necessarily different strains mind. But that is possible and they’d be closely related and perhaps more compatible than a designed mixture of strains. We hear a lot of talk about multi-strain yeast cultures, but, again, there’s rarely any evidence to support the claims. What I’d like to see is some credible evidence to back up the claims. That’s not too much to ask for, is it? As a proud Brit who enjoys a good English pint, I’m more than happy to defend British brewing heritage, but I refuse to talk ***** about it. How difficult can it be to design a project, perhaps for a PhD student at Herriot-Watt or Nottingham, to characterise a rumoured multi-strain brewery culture, described as ‘among the finest in the land’, then ferment with individual strains and various combinations of strains so as to demonstrate the brewery’s marketing department aren’t talking *****? If it's as good as they claim, isn't it worth preserving? The fact such evidence hasn’t been presented so far says something. The methodology (technology) to do so quite easily has been around for decades. I’m afraid it looks to me like they’re talking *****. And I get excellent results using pure yeast strains from traditional English breweries to ferment my home brew. I know they’re pure because I plated them out and isolated them myself.

Edit: Interim summary: the competing hypotheses here are: stable multi-strain brewery yeast vs evolving chancers flogging beer. It seems to make more sense when you ditch the romanticism.

 

[DuncB]

Should that not be varieties of yeast?

I'm not sure ask @cire as that was who made the quote you attributed to me in their post 2671.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Before I built a setup with a rocket pump and a propane regulator cask breather so I can condition in and dispense from a keg, I fooled around with one-gallon cubitainers. I would fill them and add priming solution and squeeze out the air and let them "cube condition" at room temp. The problem is that they (unlike a more rigid cask) expand so the the CO2 isn't all going into solution. And the other problem is that they might burst! So for a while I was using a spunding valve to deal with that second problem.

View attachment 746379

After a week or two of conditioning I would then put them in the fridge to get the CO2 into solution, which seemed to work as they would shrink back down to normal size. Serving by gravity is definitely a three handed job as you really want to squeeze the cube as you are dispensing to prevent air from glugging back in.

I was very tempted to try and use a 12L or 20L Speidel as a pressure barrel since I already ferment in a 30L Speidel and have the NorCal "Speidel Gas In with Pressure Relief Valve": Speidel Ball Lock Gas In with Pressure Relief Valve. NorCal Brewing Solutions

I use the gas in for closed transfers to a keg, but I would think this would work well for gravity pours with a propane regulator cask breather.

Here's my current setup, which sits right on top of a keg-conditioned keg:

View attachment 746380

@Witherby What is this set up? Looks pretty good whatever. Is it a marine pump type solution?

I really want to do an English style beer engine (or hack) here in the US without spending a bloody fortune to get a real firkin and beer engine.

As I wrote in this or another thread, the NorCal solution and after sales support was really disappointing for me. I thought I'd end up with a pressure barrel type solution and ended up with 2 orders of parts that failed to work. Your mileage may vary.

 

[cire]

I'm not sure ask @cire as that was who made the quote you attributed to me in their post 2671.

Well, I've started something here that needs a bit of explaining. I can't find the original quote that I've probably badly paraphrased. There should be no doubt that yeast can make a massive difference to any recipe in many ways, most obvious perhaps being different yeasts differentially favoring hop or malt. Of course, there are many other differences, but the only specification for yeast in Graham's recipes I can remember was for either top fermenting or bottom fermenting, not implying different strains didn't produce different results, more that the specific yeast usually couldn't be obtained.

What I believe Graham meant was that recipes used by British brewers (in particular for pale ales and bitters) were very much alike for the grist, and even with different barley strains, differences weren't necessarily noticeable while hop selection does.

My last 3 brews (pale ales) had more or less the same grist. The first was mostly Goldings, the second mostly First Gold and the third with Northdown early and Bramling Cross late. Yes, there were other similarities, all also with the same yeast and water profile, and while they looked similar, instantly the aroma and impact on taste senses were quite different.

Sorry if I've caused some consternation and perhaps wrongly represented Graham's grand writings, this was not my intention. I will say that fermentation temperature control is frequently used to restrain the better qualities of many ale yeasts. I can understand lager yeasts being held at low temperatures, but ale yeasts so restrained? Below is an extract from a brewery record from 1961 showing fermentation temperatures and gravities against time. What I, not Graham, will suggest is that even using specific yeasts, the outcome is dependent upon how it is controlled and treated.