Summery English Ale?

[MSK_Chess]

I am just wondering how yeast adds body to a beer.

 

[Hanglow]

Yeast produces lots of by products during fermentation, one of these for example is glycerol which adds a lot of body - different yeast produce different amounts

Belle Saison yeast produces loads of it, so despite that it ferments beers down to 1.002 or so the beers it makes still have a lot of body

I don't really know how much the various english yeasts produce, it would be quite nice to know

 

[65C]

This is great for IPAs and ESBs

Just bottled my first brew using MJ West Coast M44 - wow - what a difference - this will be my go to yeast for IPAs now - S-04 just hasn't worked

S-04 might not be a bad yeast but it's just not worked with my setup / temps - I had tried everything else water, mash temp, grain etc. and couldn't get any better - changing yeasts has fixed it - it's as a good as a pricey pub IPA

I've nailed my Porters but I've not had an IPA above okay - this brew is not even carbonated and it's already better than any previous one

 

[JKaranka]

M44 is great for many styles and works well in a golden ale. You want a neutral or fairly neutral yeast, pale malt (pale, pilsner, mo extra pale, any blend of those) and you can be a bit bolder with hops as far as you don't go over board. In British golden ales Cascade is fairly typical and I do like blends of Cascade, EKG and Saaz. You are looking more at floral than citrus, but there are plenty of examples with very American style ("grapefruit") hops. Typical strengths are in the 4-5% range but as the attenuations are moderately high and the finish is dry I've seen OGs starting around 1.037-38. There are fewer late additions compared to US beer (15m + dry hop or steep is typical) and there is a bit more emphasis on the bittering charge. Bitterness is pronounced starting around 30-35 IBU and some being decidedly bitter (OG 1.040 and over 45 IBU).

Also, lots of breweries use them to showcase a single hop, a bit like a SMaSH: Citra, Cascade, Jester, Nelson, etc.

 

[MSK_Chess]

I will be brewing yet another version of Timothy Taylor, using about an ounce (30g) of East Kent Goldings and 2 ounce (60g) of Styrian Bobek hops. One for bittering and one near flame out. I may do a hop stand, reduce the temp to 80 Celsius and then add the flame out Bobek hops and let it stand for 15 min. This time I will be using a small amount of melanoidin malt to get that slightly amber colour. Will also be doing a Hochkurz mash and adding small amounts of sulphate to get a slightly dry profile. Should be interesting. Something like this.

Pale Malt 4.35 kg
Acid Malt 70 g
Melanoiden Malt 150 g

Styrian Bobek 4.2% 32g 60 min 12.9 IBU's
East Kent Goldings 5.4% 32g 60 min 16.6 IBU's
Styrian Bobek 4.2% 30g 10 min 4.4 IBU's

 

[65C]

I will be brewing yet another version of Timothy Taylor, using about an ounce (30g) of East Kent Goldings and 2 ounce (60g) of Styrian Bobek hops.

I need to try Styrian Bobek next month I think - I've started doing the hop stand now (at 80Cish) it has made a noticeable difference over adding them at flameout.

If I've got a beer like this and a Porter around - that does me just fine.

 

[65C]

In British golden ales Cascade is fairly typical and I do like blends of Cascade, EKG and Saaz.

After a lot of experiments - those are my main hops now (coincidentally) - I usually use Northern Brewer and Target for bitterness as they have been cheap this year.

Cascade is definitely a favourite right now - but I've just started drinking my first Pils/EKG SMaSH and really impressed with that - I did one months ago but with a lot less aroma hops and too much bitterness which was a bit of a challenge to drink - but this one is really good.

I'm completely off the big Citra thing, it got me in to brewing originally, but I'm finding less hops and more time spent getting the grain/mash right is giving me my kind of beers.

 

[65C]

Also @MSK_Chess - in 1997'ish I was living in Altrincham - there was a pub the Market Tavern - they had TT on every other week or so - the original post I made was thinking about those days.

When I buy bottles of TT now - it tastes nothing like (I remember) the draught did in '97 - maybe I've changed. They used to have Summer Lightning (I think) and several other light/golden ales - it was a really great time for beer.

 

[MSK_Chess]

I need to try Styrian Bobek next month I think - I've started doing the hop stand now (at 80Cish) it has made a noticeable difference over adding them at flameout.

If I've got a beer like this and a Porter around - that does me just fine.

Bobek are great. They are meant to be a little more pungent than Styrian Goldings which is great, pretty cheap too. I've had kind of lime/citrus flavours from them before, not like American hops, just very subtle hints. Hop stand, a noticeable difference you say? Excellent!

I have been pre boiling my mash and sparge water and adding instead of calcium sulphate a very small amount of Sodium metabisulfite literally 0.3 of a gram to scavenge oxygen and its made a noticeable difference to my beers. I also do completely closed transfers from carboy to keg and this has also made a noticeable difference. Like you i also like to have a light and a dark beer on tap.

 

[MSK_Chess]

Also @MSK_Chess - in 1997'ish I was living in Altrincham - there was a pub the Market Tavern - they had TT on every other week or so - the original post I made was thinking about those days.

When I buy bottles of TT now - it tastes nothing like (I remember) the draught did in '97 - maybe I've changed. They used to have Summer Lightning (I think) and several other light/golden ales - it was a really great time for beer.

Sounds great 65C, cask TT is meant to be the biz. I only evah had it in bottles.

 

[Hanglow]

It's a different beer for sure.

Tennent's on Byres Road has it on usually, you could try it there

 

[MSK_Chess]

It's a different beer for sure.

Tennent's on Byres Road has it on usually, you could try it there

I used to live in Cranworth St just off of Byres Rd, damn students always waking me up at 3AM in the morning with their antics.

 

[MSK_Chess]

After a lot of experiments - those are my main hops now (coincidentally) - I usually use Northern Brewer and Target for bitterness as they have been cheap this year.

Cascade is definitely a favourite right now - but I've just started drinking my first Pils/EKG SMaSH and really impressed with that - I did one months ago but with a lot less aroma hops and too much bitterness which was a bit of a challenge to drink - but this one is really good.

I'm completely off the big Citra thing, it got me in to brewing originally, but I'm finding less hops and more time spent getting the grain/mash right is giving me my kind of beers.

I am pretty sure Marstons EPA uses Cascade. I tried to make it a couple of times and the results we reasonable. Mosiac is the hop I love, done loads of Mosiac SMASH beers. Need to try a Citra or Galaxy.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

As far as Landlord goes - the main problem with it in cask is that most pubs don't give it the time it needs for its extended secondary fermentation, it needs much longer between tapping and serving than most beers. And I'm still not sure that it's even the best beer in the TT range - I'll be passing through the homeland in a few weeks, some comparative tasting is in order.

M44 is great for many styles and works well in a golden ale. You want a neutral or fairly neutral yeast, pale malt (pale, pilsner, mo extra pale, any blend of those) and you can be a bit bolder with hops as far as you don't go over board. In British golden ales Cascade is fairly typical and I do like blends of Cascade, EKG and Saaz. You are looking more at floral than citrus, but there are plenty of examples with very American style ("grapefruit") hops. Typical strengths are in the 4-5% range but as the attenuations are moderately high and the finish is dry I've seen OGs starting around 1.037-38. There are fewer late additions compared to US beer (15m + dry hop or steep is typical) and there is a bit more emphasis on the bittering charge. Bitterness is pronounced starting around 30-35 IBU and some being decidedly bitter (OG 1.040 and over 45 IBU).

Also, lots of breweries use them to showcase a single hop, a bit like a SMaSH: Citra, Cascade, Jester, Nelson, etc.

+1 to most of this. However 5% is going a bit high. I know that's what Summer Lightning is, which is one of the progenitors of the style, but it now looks a bit of an outlier - modern 5%ers tend to look far more explicitly to US IPAs, and in general most pubs tend not to go over 4.5% in cask. The range is better defined by the true originals of Boddingtons and Exmoor Gold at 3.8% and 4.5% (cask) respectively.

In fact I wouldn't lump them altogether like this, I think there's now two clear subfamilies of golden ale equivalent to ordinary and best bitter. These days many British pubs will have a ~3.8% golden ale and a ~4.2% brown best bitter as their core cask ales, and then add hoppy and dark ones on additional lines. Many of the 3.8% golden ales are somewhat made down to a price, but are still very drinkable (and arguably need more skill to execute well within the constraints), whereas the 4.2-4.5% ones tend to have the better, fancier ingredients and start overlapping with session IPAs at the top end.

Like most British beer, the key is balance and drinkability, all the components are making a contribution. So the liquor can be pretty neutral - say 70-100 Ca, Cl and SO4, but up the SO4 if you want to crisp it up a bit.

Grist should be pretty simple - it's hard to argue with 100% Maris Otter, certainly for the premium ones. However I'd be tempted to go 2:1 MO-pilsner if it's a more characterful MO like Fawcetts. The cheaper ones may well use one of the newer barley varieties like Concerto or Odyssey - I know Summer Lightning used Optic when Optic was on the main list of malting varieties. I've not used US 2-row but I'd imagine it would be fine, particularly for that lower end.

Some people try and liven up cheaper malts with a bit of crystal. I'd prefer invert #3, you want good attenuation as the dryness helps the drinkability and a bit of sugar (up to say 5%) is pretty traditional in a lot of British beer. Goat's Milk, the current Champion Beer of Britain, has some oats in the mix but personally I think they've overdone it, I don't like the definite porridge note in it. Northern versions will likely have 5% torrefied wheat for head.

I'm not sure about a bitterness ratio >1, but certainly BU:GU of 0.8-0.9 is pretty normal. In the 1990s they used trad British hops and eg Saaz and Styrians, Cascade became part of the mix in the noughties, and eg Goat''s Milk is a Cascade/Chinook blend. The fancier ones nowadays often have a bit of Citra in the mix - Track Sonoma has Mosaic and Centennial as well, which is very teens but perhaps getting a bit away from the humble roots. Clever brewers make the cheap ones with lesser-known East European hops, but it needs a lot more skill and experience compared to paying £££ for Citra. Although British brewers have a long history of dry hopping going back to the 19th century and beyond, a lot of smaller ones don't like doing it for cask ale, they tend to go more for whirlpool additions at the latest. But don't be afraid to dry hop.

Yeast wants decent flocculation, decent attenuation and to be fairly clean and British without being completely neutral. Which sounds like Nottingham to me - dry yeast fits the unpretentious nature of the style. But use what you want within reason - I'm about to do some yeast tests, but my LHBS suggested Mangrove Jack M36 Liberty Bell and it seems fine, although it's not the best at settling.

 

[MSK_Chess]

I used to use Nottingham when i used dry yeast, to me it had a peppery kind of flavour. Now I use WLP002 for practically everything including APA's, Stouts, Porters, EPA's, SMASH etc its just wonderful. I have tried M44 but I am not a huge fan of dried yeasts per se and prefer a yeast profile to something that is very neutral. Oats seem to be quite a popular adjunct at the moment.