English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

[McMullan]

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.

View attachment 746532

I'd add that hops of the same variety vary noticeably not just from different years (seasons) but from different farms and regions due to local terroir. Despite being a small island north of the Isle of Wight, and adrift in the north Atlantic, with a fuzzy-haired posh lunatic at the helm, Britain is remarkably diverse in terms of geology and other environmental conditions. I quite like Goldings and I've had batches from a number of different farms and from different seasons from the same farm. The variation is not insignificant and I'd agree comparable recipes with the same hop variety grown in different terroir produces distinguishable ales. Factor in too the different hopping practices at different breweries and the 'same' beer brewed across Britain might vary considerably without considering yeast strain. Fact is, if we gave two brewers the challenge of brewing the same recipe and provided exactly the same ingredients to both, including water and yeast, they'd likely produce different beers. And why attempting to exactly match a specific standardised commercial beer is more likely a hopeless challenge. But it's fun trying.

Edit: I forgot to mention that British hops was once a very big industry, using up much acreage across the land.

 

[Witherby]

@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.

I wrote about it here:
Feedback on English Dark Mild Recipe?

Actually it was in response to a question from you!!

With the warm fall we are having in New England this year, my cellar isn't cool enough yet to start brewing English styles, but hopefully soon!

 

[rmr9]

@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.

eBay is a solid place to look for second hand beer engines, I managed to pick mine up for maybe $120ish shipped. It was a little ugly but I cleaned it up real nice and got a couple replacement parts from RLBS. I ordered a brand new pin cask from G4 kegs for $100 shipped. It can be done for less than a fortune!

 

[kmarkstevens]

I wrote about it here:
Feedback on English Dark Mild Recipe?

Actually it was in response to a question from you!!

Post was eaten. Thanks for responding twice. I've been slowly researching and trying to line this up asa Thanksgiving or xmas project!

 

[DuncB]

and David Heath Homebrew just done a Dark mild recipe on his channel.

 

[kmarkstevens]

and David Heath Homebrew just done a Dark mild recipe on his channel.

I saw that and looks to be a good recipe. nice tip on adding the chocolate malt for only the last 10-15 minutes of the boil to minimize astringincy, and I like his minimal black patent for color. I have it on the "to brew" list.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

I saw that and looks to be a good recipe. nice tip on adding the chocolate malt for only the last 10-15 minutes of the boil to minimize astringincy, and I like his minimal black patent for color. I have it on the "to brew" list.

Chocolate malt rather than Carafa surely. I would a different yeast to S04 too, personally.

There's a stack of classic dark mild grain bills here...

https://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56335

 

[shoreman]

8 days later in the Cubitainer this mild is still holding carbonation, I do have a weight on top pushing the Cubitainer down without hopefully bursting it. That seems to be helpful.

it’s a 2.5gallon and it is about 1/3 finished.

I just wish it wasn’t so unseasonably warm here in New England, I keep adding some ice packs when I think I’ll be having a couple.

I’m pretty sold on this cheap and effective way to have gravity fed real ale on tap for a couple bucks.

I have another 2.5gallons in a torpedo keg that’s naturally conditioning - will be interesting to see the difference.

 

[DuncB]

@shoreman
Our local fish and chip shops and fish mongers also hospital pharmacies get stuff delivered in polystyrene boxes with polystyrene lids. Biggest one I have is about 14 inches high and 20 inches long.
If you could get hold of these then a bit of work with a knife and some cool blocks in there might be a nifty solution.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Chocolate malt rather than Carafa surely. I would a different yeast to S04 too, personally.

There's a stack of classic dark mild grain bills here...

https://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56335

Holy mash, Batman, that's a boatload of grain bills!

 

[cyberbackpacker]

Just an FYI I use one gallon cubitainers from US Plastics. For me I find it helps having the beer stay in optimal condition longer just having a gallon being dispensed at a time. That said, as these are plastic, they will slowly lose condition (compared to a metal keg or cask) so you cannot store them indefinitely.

But again, I find the 1 gallon a nice size. (I typically brew a 2.5g batch hoping to fill 2 one gallon cubitainers with clear beer).

 

[shoreman]

Yeah I might order some 1 gallons in the future, the shipping prices suck at US plastics- it’s like a minimum of $12 for a couple $ worth of stuff I have a couple of 2.5 gallons left over from when I had a beer engine hooked up to these. The beer engine seemed to collapse the Cubitainer a bit better maybe from the draw? I had a one way valve on it.

if it lasts 2-3 weeks I’ll be happy. I think it worked out to 14-16 pints.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

I've been tinkering on a recipe for a dark mild:
MO as base
8% Crystal, will likely do my usual mix of 50/50 Crisp C150/240(ebc)
8% Invert #3(probably demerara)
4% Brown malt (Crisp)
2% Chocolate malt

90 min boil
Targeting 1.038 OG 18 IBU and aim for 70-low 70's AA with an English yeast.

Also now that we will have a bigger house and I can finally make a kegerator and place for spare kegs and get to start kegging, I've been thinking about what approach to take.
Since I brew mostly Brittish style ale, I plan to naturally carb to 1.8-2 vol in the keg and then keep and serve at 11c.
I suppose this will get me a cask like feel without spoiling the beer as I don't drink 5 gallons fast enough to not have it go bad in a real beer engine. Am I thinking somewhat right, and does the recipe look decent?

 

[DuncB]

@Erik the Anglophile
Would think that 1.8 -2.0 vol a little over carbed for english style bitter for example. Usually about 1.2 vols so at 11c that would be only 1.67 psi.

 

[Franktalk]

I've been tinkering on a recipe for a dark mild:
MO as base
8% Crystal, will likely do my usual mix of 50/50 Crisp C150/240(ebc)
8% Invert #3(probably demerara)
4% Brown malt (Crisp)
2% Chocolate malt

90 min boil
Targeting 1.038 OG 18 IBU and aim for 70-low 70's AA with an English yeast.

Also now that we will have a bigger house and I can finally make a kegerator and place for spare kegs and get to start kegging, I've been thinking about what approach to take.
Since I brew mostly Brittish style ale, I plan to naturally carb to 1.8-2 vol in the keg and then keep and serve at 11c.
I suppose this will get me a cask like feel without spoiling the beer as I don't drink 5 gallons fast enough to not have it go bad in a real beer engine. Am I thinking somewhat right, and does the recipe look decent?

Have you ever thought about serving your milds/bitters on Nitro? It is a bit of an investment, but, IMHO it is the best way to replicate cask ales.

 

[DuncB]

No

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

It seems the numbers I had was the ones I looked up and used for bottling. After googling a bit and reading a post by @Northern_Brewer I believe something along 1.5-1.7 would be apropriate in the keg to get a little faux cask feel. I will start at 1.6 and see how I like it.
And does anyone have any opinions on the mild recipe? Looking to get something in the vein of Rudgate's ruby mild, but lower abv and a little roasty kick to it.

 

[schmurf]

Personally I don't care much for brown malt and too much roast... 2% would be a bit too much for my liking, but that's just me. Maybe cold steeping the chocolate malt?

 

[Miraculix]

It seems the numbers I had was the ones I looked up and used for bottling. After googling a bit and reading a post by @Northern_Brewer I believe something along 1.5-1.7 would be apropriate in the keg to get a little faux cask feel. I will start at 1.6 and see how I like it.
And does anyone have any opinions on the mild recipe? Looking to get something in the vein of Rudgate's ruby mild, but lower abv and a little roasty kick to it.

I think I had that ruby mild once from tap in a pub in st. Albans North of London. It was really nice, I get why you want to get into that direction!

If I remember correctly, there was not much roast but I also do not remember having much of a chocolate malt impact.

First of all, your recipe seems to be too light in colour. Only two percent of chocolate won't do it. Also, chocolate malt seems to be more on the brown side. Black Prince, roasted barley or midnight wheat seems to be more on the black or, when used at a lower proportion, ruby or red colour.

I think I would throw out the chocolate and replace it with midnight wheat. That's the smoothest of the three I've mentioned. I would also up the percentage. About ten percent gives a nice stout colour, so I would use probably 5-6% in this Case.

I personally don't like brown malt, so I would throw it out, but that might be a matter of taste. I did not detect any brown malt in the ruby red. I got crystal, possibly invert and something dark without much roast. So I think ten percent medium to dark crystal, ten percent dark invert, plus 5-6% midnight wheat would sound good to me... I'm going to brew a dark mild like this soon.

 

[Shenanigans]

Love the way this thread bounces from one topic to the next.

Now that we are on dark mild recipies maybe it has been linked in one of the previous 67 pages but in case anyone's interested and hasn't seen this one before.
It seems to be very popular.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/mild-mannered-ale-ag-e-uk-us.52776/

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

Well the rudgates was just as a baseline, I want the caramel sweetness but would also like a little nutty and chocolatey roast to it.
I was looking at the list with historic mild grainbills posted earlier, and many of them seemed to have quite the roasty kick to them, so I figured why not try that? I personally really enjoy Brown malt in moderate amounts as a way to add depth, but that's just my personal taste.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I've been tinkering on a recipe for a dark mild:
MO as base
8% Crystal, will likely do my usual mix of 50/50 Crisp C150/240(ebc)
8% Invert #3(probably demerara)
4% Brown malt (Crisp)
2% Chocolate malt

The recipe looks fine - the thing about mild is that it comes in all sorts of variations both regionally and at a brewery level. Using that much speciality malt is perhaps taking it away from the classic West Midlands version into something closer to the Northwest style (which tends to use more crystal than most), but it will work. By way of example, see the Lees Best Mild in the 1950s :
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2010/08/lees-best-mild-1950-1963.html
It can't be emphasised enough that Lees were not very typical - not many breweries post-WWII had two milds. The whole idea of Best Mild was a bit of a contradiction in terms and having a dark best and a pale "ordinary" mild was really quite unusual. And just generally, using so much speciality malt was not common (see Ron's other Dark Mild recipes), I guess that's what justified "Best" status... But some of those early 1950s recipes look quite tasty, even if they changed them a lot.

Would think that 1.8 -2.0 vol a little over carbed for english style bitter for example. Usually about 1.2 vols so at 11c that would be only 1.67 psi.

It seems the numbers I had was the ones I looked up and used for bottling. After googling a bit and reading a post by @Northern_Brewer I believe something along 1.5-1.7 would be apropriate in the keg to get a little faux cask feel. I will start at 1.6 and see how I like it.
And does anyone have any opinions on the mild recipe? Looking to get something in the vein of Rudgate's ruby mild, but lower abv and a little roasty kick to it.

It's worth reminding people that proper cask-conditioned ale does have "condition", the tired stuff in tourist pubs is not cask at its best. Taking a random Google, this Purity shows a proper amount of condition, even if the head is a bit too big even for a sparkler (already about 12% by my measurement, with more to come once it's settled a little more).

I don't force carbonate, so can't really compare what's right, but certainly when bottling adding sugar that the calculators say will take me to around 1.8-1.9 feels about right for bitter. I'd probably go a bit lower for mild though - as a weaker, more delicate beer it's easy to wreck the balance with too much CO2. I have had really fresh mild on cask that was so lively that it didn't even need a sparkler to give good head, but it was only like that for 2-3 hours after going on, by the end of the session it had a loose sparkler on. (part of the art of cask cellarmanship is adapting the serve to the lifecycle of a beer)

 

[cire]

Some of the work for this paper was done in a pub where I drink. Sadly the procedure has changed since 2016 against the wishes of the management, but that's so often business. Then the casks were on stillages and vented as required, tapped and sampled. If the beer was ready, or when it was ready, the spile would be completely removed, not even a soft spile would be used. If any beer remained after 7 days (very rarely) it would be taken off and the cask drained.

Carbonation is measured both by volume and weight. The paper gives g/L and if divided by 1.96 will give vol.

Beer served with nitrogen is very different to naturally carbonated.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Personally I don't care much for brown malt and too much roast... 2% would be a bit too much for my liking, but that's just me. Maybe cold steeping the chocolate malt?

I think Brown tastes like ass. And I have had Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale, which has the same ass taste. I'm postulating that Sam Smith uses brown but I could easily be wrong.

What I have read and tried is whenever a receipe calls for brown, then can substitute double the amount of biscuit (amber).

 

[kmarkstevens]

Love the way this thread bounces from one topic to the next.

Now that we are on dark mild recipies maybe it has been linked in one of the previous 67 pages but in case anyone's interested and hasn't seen this one before.
It seems to be very popular.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/mild-mannered-ale-ag-e-uk-us.52776/

I call this Orfy's mild. It is the recipe that has pulled me down the Mild rabbit hole.

BTW, anyone know what's become of Orfy? I fear he is holding court in the great brewery in the sky.

 

[Miraculix]

I think Brown tastes like ass. And I have had Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale, which has the same ass taste. I'm postulating that Sam Smith uses brown but I could easily be wrong.

What I have read and tried is whenever a receipe calls for brown, then can substitute double the amount of biscuit (amber).

I taste chocolate malt in there but no brown malt, but I could be obviously completely wrong.

I also don't like brown malt, not the biggest fan of chocolate malt either, but somehow I really like the nutbrown ale.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

I taste chocolate malt in there but no brown malt, but I could be obviously completely wrong.

I also don't like brown malt, not the biggest fan of chocolate malt either, but somehow I really like the nutbrown ale.

I don't think SS Nut Brown ale uses brown malt. Fuller's London Porter does, and I think that is a really nice beer, personally. I use brown malt in stouts and porters, I like it.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

I really like brown malt aswell, a porter without a fair deal of brown don't taste like porter IMO. Altough it needs some ageing to mellow out.
However I have found that brown malt in moderate amounts, a few percent of the grist, will not really give that brown malt flavour but rather a dry-ish toasty nuttyness. I personally really enjoy it in my northern style paler Brown Ale.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I've made a decent Biscuit type malt via roasting Vienna base malt in an oven at 120 C. (250 F.) for one hour. If I extended this process to 2 hours might I wind up with something akin to a Brown malt?

 

[duncan_disorderly]

I've made a decent Biscuit type malt via roasting Vienna base malt in an oven at 120 C. (250 F.) for one hour. If I extended this process to 2 hours might I wind up with something akin to a Brown malt?

Never done it but John Palmer says in his section about toasting grains:

350 °F

Wet

2 hours

Strong Toast/Roast flavor similar to Brown Malt.

Since the browning reactions are influenced by the wetness of the grain, water can be used in conjunction with the toasting process to produce different flavors in the malt. Soaking the uncrushed malt in water for an hour will provide the water necessary to optimize the Maillard browning reactions. Toasting wet malt will produce more of a caramel flavor due to partial starch conversion taking place from the heat. Toasting dry grain will produce more of a toast or Grape-Nuts cereal flavor which is perfect for nut-brown ales.