I'm sure many of you enjoyed reading the IPA book published a few years ago. It made me think about how different the brewing techniques were back in the day. The big themes seemed to be a single pale malt, lots and lots of low alpha hops, several seasons of aging, the near certainty of Brett infection, and a boat ride that crossed the equator twice (in the early years). So how does an American home brewer today even get close while using his regular brewing equipment?
So I worked out my Old Burton IPA. It isn't strictly authentic...but drinking it gives me a glimpse of what that glass of IPA in a Calcutta officer's club may have been. And I can say that although it's a little different than what you're served at the local microbrewery, those old timers knew a good thing.
GENERAL STATS:
Note: Your system is different than mine, so I'm trying to give the targets to hit, not the amounts typical to my setup.
Batch Yield: 4 gallons **Special Note: The first year you brew this, you will need to do a bigger batch, yielding at least 5.25 gallons. Explained below in first year's process.
Boil Time: 90 minutes
OG: 1.060
FG: 1.010
IBU: lots
SRM: 6
ABV: 6.7%
INGREDIENTS:
Maris Otter......90%
Sugar (your choice of kind)......10%
A pound of East Kent Goldings divided as follows:
EKG.....40%...First Wort Hop
EKG.....20%...45 minutes
EKG.....20%...0 minutes
EKG.....20%...Dry Hop
First Fermentation: British Ale Yeast
Second Fermentation: Brett C & Oak Cubes (Hungarian medium toast for me)
PROCESS, PART 1:
1. Mash and boil per your usual process (I do a 60 minute mash at 150 degrees and a batch sparge)
2. Boil 90 minutes (Warning - the volume of hops makes this a boilover monster)
3. Add sugar at flameout, wait a while to utilize the 0 minute hop addition, then cool it down
4. Whirlpool in the pot and give it time to settle out the hop debris as much as possible
5. Decant wort to fermenter and aerate
6. Pitch and ferment at yeast's recommended temps
7. After reaching final gravity, cold crash to settle out that yeast
PROCESS, PART 2:
Okay so this is not anything special yet; basically you've made a SMASH beer while seeming to waste a lot of low alpha hops. Here is where the magic happens.
YEAR NUMBER 1: The first year you do this, you get to drink no beer, so that sucks, but the payoff is coming. Basically rack your fermented beer into a 5 gallon carboy, add wood chips and your Brett C. Now take it out to your garage and find a dusty dark corner. Place fermenter in corner and live the next year of your life.
The idea here is that your garage temps are going to be a slightly controlled up & down swing that varies with seasons and day/night. I live in the northwest mountain region of the US, so my temps swing from 80 in summer afternoons to 35 on winter nights (in the garage). We are trying to sorta replicate the English beer storage warehousing and a subsequent boat ride through the different latitudes. No refrigerated warehouses available back then.
YEAR NUMBER 1+n (or year 2, 3, 4....): So, now comes the payoff. My process is to rack all the old beer out of the carboy. Dump out the oak chips. Give the carboy a modest wash and rinse off the chips. Return the old chips to the carboy. Now, rack the new beer into the carboy filling it up to the 4 gallon level. Finally, rack a gallon of the old beer on top of the new beer (thereby spreading the Brett C to the new beer), and haul the carboy out to that garage corner again to sit for another year.
Now take your remaining 4 gallons of old beer and hit it with the dry hops for a week or so. Finally prime and bottle (or do whatever you do to get it to serving condition).
RESULTS: So what does this beer taste like? Was it worth a year of your life and the time / cost to make? It is different, I'll let you know that right off. To me, it doesn't have what we typically know as an IPA hop flavor punch. It is aged and mellower than you expect. When I drink it I'm most reminded of a little bit of pineapple juice flavor, which I think comes out from the up and down temps starting and stopping the Brett C. The IPA book relates the experiences and tasting descriptions as being "sparkling and aged" and having certain other "stock ale" flavors. It is certainly different than the fresh young styles of beer that are produced in our times.
I hope that this inspires others to try some out of the box brewing techniques.....you can certainly make major modifications to my recipe above and still come out with very special beers. Good luck.
So I worked out my Old Burton IPA. It isn't strictly authentic...but drinking it gives me a glimpse of what that glass of IPA in a Calcutta officer's club may have been. And I can say that although it's a little different than what you're served at the local microbrewery, those old timers knew a good thing.
GENERAL STATS:
Note: Your system is different than mine, so I'm trying to give the targets to hit, not the amounts typical to my setup.
Batch Yield: 4 gallons **Special Note: The first year you brew this, you will need to do a bigger batch, yielding at least 5.25 gallons. Explained below in first year's process.
Boil Time: 90 minutes
OG: 1.060
FG: 1.010
IBU: lots
SRM: 6
ABV: 6.7%
INGREDIENTS:
Maris Otter......90%
Sugar (your choice of kind)......10%
A pound of East Kent Goldings divided as follows:
EKG.....40%...First Wort Hop
EKG.....20%...45 minutes
EKG.....20%...0 minutes
EKG.....20%...Dry Hop
First Fermentation: British Ale Yeast
Second Fermentation: Brett C & Oak Cubes (Hungarian medium toast for me)
PROCESS, PART 1:
1. Mash and boil per your usual process (I do a 60 minute mash at 150 degrees and a batch sparge)
2. Boil 90 minutes (Warning - the volume of hops makes this a boilover monster)
3. Add sugar at flameout, wait a while to utilize the 0 minute hop addition, then cool it down
4. Whirlpool in the pot and give it time to settle out the hop debris as much as possible
5. Decant wort to fermenter and aerate
6. Pitch and ferment at yeast's recommended temps
7. After reaching final gravity, cold crash to settle out that yeast
PROCESS, PART 2:
Okay so this is not anything special yet; basically you've made a SMASH beer while seeming to waste a lot of low alpha hops. Here is where the magic happens.
YEAR NUMBER 1: The first year you do this, you get to drink no beer, so that sucks, but the payoff is coming. Basically rack your fermented beer into a 5 gallon carboy, add wood chips and your Brett C. Now take it out to your garage and find a dusty dark corner. Place fermenter in corner and live the next year of your life.
The idea here is that your garage temps are going to be a slightly controlled up & down swing that varies with seasons and day/night. I live in the northwest mountain region of the US, so my temps swing from 80 in summer afternoons to 35 on winter nights (in the garage). We are trying to sorta replicate the English beer storage warehousing and a subsequent boat ride through the different latitudes. No refrigerated warehouses available back then.
YEAR NUMBER 1+n (or year 2, 3, 4....): So, now comes the payoff. My process is to rack all the old beer out of the carboy. Dump out the oak chips. Give the carboy a modest wash and rinse off the chips. Return the old chips to the carboy. Now, rack the new beer into the carboy filling it up to the 4 gallon level. Finally, rack a gallon of the old beer on top of the new beer (thereby spreading the Brett C to the new beer), and haul the carboy out to that garage corner again to sit for another year.
Now take your remaining 4 gallons of old beer and hit it with the dry hops for a week or so. Finally prime and bottle (or do whatever you do to get it to serving condition).
RESULTS: So what does this beer taste like? Was it worth a year of your life and the time / cost to make? It is different, I'll let you know that right off. To me, it doesn't have what we typically know as an IPA hop flavor punch. It is aged and mellower than you expect. When I drink it I'm most reminded of a little bit of pineapple juice flavor, which I think comes out from the up and down temps starting and stopping the Brett C. The IPA book relates the experiences and tasting descriptions as being "sparkling and aged" and having certain other "stock ale" flavors. It is certainly different than the fresh young styles of beer that are produced in our times.
I hope that this inspires others to try some out of the box brewing techniques.....you can certainly make major modifications to my recipe above and still come out with very special beers. Good luck.
