Need a good recipe for a Scottish ale to be ready to drink by end of September. Any ideas?
Suggestions for Scottish Ale
- Thread starter tommy24a
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Easy-drinking? Strong? Historic? American perception of?
OP
OP
How bout between easy drinking and strong? Lol
Traquair House Ale
98% UK pale ale malt (Maris Otter, Golden Promise)
2% Roasted Barley
148° for 60m
1.070 OG
120m boil
26 IBU EKG @ 120m
3 IBU EKG @ 10m
Notty, Tartan, 1728, 028, etc coolish temp
If you're interested, check out Ron Pattinson's blog for historic Scottish brewing info and recipes. You'll quickly be washed of the myth that Scottish beer is super sweet and not hoppy at all.
OP
OP
Thank you!
Take a gallon of the wort and boil it down to a cup of syrup on your stove. Go as far as you can without it burning - don't burn it. Then add that back to your fermentor. Thank me later.
OP
OP
Really?
There's a popular Traquair House Ale (Skotrat's) recipe online that utilizes the wort reduction technique. The recipe has gotten great reviews from those who've brewed it. The recipe I shared above is from Jeff Alworth's recent book and is attributed to the brewery owner herself.
It gets down to the types of questions I asked at the beginning. Do you want to brew an ale as typically brewed by Scottish breweries, or do you want to brew what is typically thought of Scottish?
Pattinson has shown that Scottish boils were no longer than English. 60-90 minutes most of the time. Traquair's is actually pretty long. You're not getting a huge amount of caramelization in that time.
My hunch, and it's just that, is that the whole kettle caramelization (wort reduction) thing is to add malty flavor to worts made up with mostly US 2-row which lacks the flavor intensity of Old World malts.
It gets down to the types of questions I asked at the beginning. Do you want to brew an ale as typically brewed by Scottish breweries, or do you want to brew what is typically thought of Scottish?
Pattinson has shown that Scottish boils were no longer than English. 60-90 minutes most of the time. Traquair's is actually pretty long. You're not getting a huge amount of caramelization in that time.
My hunch, and it's just that, is that the whole kettle caramelization (wort reduction) thing is to add malty flavor to worts made up with mostly US 2-row which lacks the flavor intensity of Old World malts.
Totally legit. That little bit of caramelized goodness will add dimension to your wee heavy.
Check out this one (and it has the step of boiling down some of the runnings).
Check out this one (and it has the step of boiling down some of the runnings).
Brewed this recipe back in January - principally because I needed to make a large batch of yeast to ferment a Strong Scotch Ale (Wee Heavy) over afterwards. This was well reviewed by the folks I allowed to try it.
This is a five gallon recipe, based on roughly 60% brewhouse efficiency. I buy RO water and make up water additions. Furthermore, I wrote this recipe around what my local homebrew shop had available - before I realized they also carried Simpson's Golden Promise which I am told is the base malt to make a Scottish ale. I may brew it again next January once I'm beyond the holidays and burned out on hoppy beers again.
This is a five gallon recipe, based on roughly 60% brewhouse efficiency. I buy RO water and make up water additions. Furthermore, I wrote this recipe around what my local homebrew shop had available - before I realized they also carried Simpson's Golden Promise which I am told is the base malt to make a Scottish ale. I may brew it again next January once I'm beyond the holidays and burned out on hoppy beers again.
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As DBhomebrew says do yourself a favor and go search the blog Shut Up About Barclay Perkins. better yet, buy Ron's book Scotland! II. It is loaded with recipes and information that will dispel all the myths like the one that suggests Scottish brewers boiled for long periods of time or that they somehow caramelized their wort. Or perhaps the worse myth ever that they used peat smoked malt. They did not.
My favorite scotch ale was McEwan's Scotch Ale. They stopped making it for a while, but somebody else is making it now. Anyway, it had a noticeable flavor of caramelization. Not sure how they got it in there, but I like it.
Here's my 5g recipe. A friend of mine (who, BTW, won gold at NHC comp) told me it was the best beer I'd ever made. I thought it was pretty good too
I did boil some of it down as I described above. I definitely don't make beers with this many malts in them anymore, but what can I say, it was good. Yes, I put a little smoked malt in there haha. 
Steveruch
Well-Known Member
Carmelization doesn't happen at boiling temperature. Doing a wort reduction does add a nice maltiness to the end result.
Or just add actual caramel. Like Scottish brewers did.
This thread might be relevant.
OP
OP
Great info guys!
