I decided to force carb the main batch for speed, so I was able to sample the beer last night. It tastes nice but it's not exactly what I had in mind and plan make a few adjustments for the Christmas re-brew. It also has poor head retention for some reason, which is a head-scratcher given the ingredients and high mash temp. Not sure what happened there.
The overall flavor is "mild", so that's a plus, and it has the right amount of body. There's a pronounced dark fruit flavor and a mild but noticeable dark malt character. For the rebrew, I plan to reduce the chocolate malt and flaked barley, but increase the C80. I'm just now recalling my dad commenting on an amber ale I brewed a few years ago that had 13% C80 and he remarked at the time that it tasted like the milds he used to drink. With that in mind, I'm tweaking my recipe as follows:
DARK MILD, v2
77% Golden Promise
12% UK C80
8% Flaked barley
3% UK Chocolate
Willamette (or EKG) @ 60 to 20 IBU
Wyeast 1469 West Yorks
The overall flavor is "mild", so that's a plus, and it has the right amount of body. There's a pronounced dark fruit flavor and a mild but noticeable dark malt character. For the rebrew, I plan to reduce the chocolate malt and flaked barley, but increase the C80. I'm just now recalling my dad commenting on an amber ale I brewed a few years ago that had 13% C80 and he remarked at the time that it tasted like the milds he used to drink. With that in mind, I'm tweaking my recipe as follows:
DARK MILD, v2
77% Golden Promise
12% UK C80
8% Flaked barley
3% UK Chocolate
Willamette (or EKG) @ 60 to 20 IBU
Wyeast 1469 West Yorks