Summery English Ale?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
JonM

JonM

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2010
Messages
9,308
Reaction score
4,152
Location
Milwaukee
So I was planning to do a saison over the Memorial Day weekend and I went to make my starter and ... whoops! The yeast I have ready to go is 002 rather than 3711 (long story). So I guess I'm making an English Ale. I've made the Common Room ESB many times and I have made Orfy's Mild, which is awesome, but I'm thinking I'd like something lighter for the summer.

So I'm thinking for a 5-gallon batch:

10 lbs of Maris Otter mashed at 152
Bitter with Target
One, maybe two late additions of UK Goldings

And ferment with that 002. I'm sure that'll be good, but I'm wondering if anyone have a tried and true light English style ale recipe. Thanks all!
 
You should search for Golden ale recipes.

10lb might be a bit much for light finish with 002, although you could mash lower and longer for that.
 
dyqik said:
You should search for Golden ale recipes.

10lb might be a bit much for light finish with 002, although you could mash lower and longer for that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was just racking my brain trying to recall what this was that suddenly became popular a couple of years ago (kind of the NEIPA of British Beers)... It's called interchangeably British Golden Ale or Golden Bitter....

There's a bunch of interpretations out there...here's one I found...

You might also want to consider rooting through Shut Up About Barclay Perkins, one of the best beer recipe sites around, It's mostly about the history of United Kingdom Beers. Lots of ideas to be found in there....
 
Nice - that's pretty much what I settled on, including the Challenger hops for bittering. Going with the Maris Otter for the base malt because I don't think I've made a golden Maris Otter beer since I learned about water chemistry.
 
Light, easy drinking, English hop character, usually quite dry.

They taste very much like a smash
 
how are you finding the all MO in a summer?

I made a couple earlier this year but found them a little dark and malty for the summer ale I was looking for

I've just made two more with pils added - at 30 and 50% to see if I can get it a bit less malty than what I get with just Maris
 
Looks a winner!!! Usually in the spring I brew a nice smash with vienna and an english hop, like EKG, fuggles, brewers gold or challenger.... you cant go wrong with that!!
OG: 1044; 4.1% ABV; 30 IBUs and S 05, fermented at 17ºC, clean and refreshing for a portuguese summer day, like today.... 45ºC outside!!!

cheers
 
Glad I took that pic when I did - the keg kicked the next day.

Definitely not too malty. I mashed at 150, so it was pretty dry/light. A good summertime sipper.
 
I'm making progress on this now - using some Pils malt with the Maris has given me the colour and reduced the maltiness - hops are closer now I'm using Target to bitter and Saaz - but still something missing - I need to try another yeast (I've used US-05 for this so far).

Has anyone got any recommendations for a summer ale yeast ?
 
MJ West Coast M44 yeast sounds like it might be worth a try
 
@65C

I've done two golden ales recently with this grainbill and they are pretty good, not as malty as the all MO beers I've done in the past - carahell is rather light and even at that amount doesn't make itself too obvious


OG 1.040
30 to 40 IBU
88.4 % Pilsner malt - weyerman/chateaux
8.4 % carahell -weyerman
3.2 % Torrified wheat


The yeasts I used was BRY97 - I like this as it clears much better than US05 although it can take a while to start. I used this with homegrown hallertau mittelfruh and while the beer certainly reminded me of german lagers, it was still obviously an ale from the yeast.

And the second one was with Crossmyloof Brewery US Pale Ale yeast ( you can buy this on ebay uk very cheaply) with London ESB yeast, three weeks on from bottling this has cleared well, it was a rather hazy when bottled - getting some nice restrained yeast esters from it. Lots of cascade in it makes a tasty beer :)
 
I just had a bottle of the fabled TT Landlord. I thought I could detect a very faint hint of caramel malt, very faint though. They must use something like that because its was almost like Irn Bru in colour, maybe melanoidin malt would give the same kind of colour, I dunno. What does carahell do if you don't mind me asking.
 
It's just a very light crystal malt from weyermann. It's lighter in flavour than the light british caramel malts imo, I know you mentioned in another thread you disliked crystal/caramel malts :) but it's pretty good when used with a pils base. I think Weihenstephaner use a similar amount in their pils

I think TT is still 100% golden promise but they will get it malted to their specs, so it might well be a bit darker than the GP we can buy off the shelf. Or they might actually add some colouring/roast malts for colour to the bottled version, I'm not sure. It could also be some oxidation if the bottle was a bit old . I've not drunk it in ages, but on its day the cask version at least is sublime
 
Just go simple man. Not sure if you're british or not but I'm from Newcastle and summer blondes and golden ales are all over the place at the moment. Add a bit of crystal 60 for a nice golden colour, stick to east kent goldings, and maybe hallertau blanc (although this pushes the idea of what an EPA is).

US-04 usually ferments out to about 1.010, giving you a nice sweet finish and plenty of fruity esters.
 
Hanglow said:
It's just a very light crystal malt from weyermann. It's lighter in flavour than the light british caramel malts imo, I know you mentioned in another thread you disliked crystal/caramel malts :) but it's pretty good when used with a pils base. I think Weihenstephaner use a similar amount in their pils

I think TT is still 100% golden promise but they will get it malted to their specs, so it might well be a bit darker than the GP we can buy off the shelf. Or they might actually add some colouring/roast malts for colour to the bottled version, I'm not sure. It could also be some oxidation if the bottle was a bit old . I've not drunk it in ages, but on its day the cask version at least is sublime
Click to expand...

Perhaps I should clarify. I am not against crystal malts per se, but just when they are used overtly in certain beers. I had a brewdog stout that had overt amounts of caramel malt in it, was truly horrible.

Ok I see its a very light crystal malt. Sounds awesome. As for TT I have used 100% Golden promise and it was a pale straw colour, the bottled TT I suspect uses a very light crystal malt or perhaps like you say they have their own speciality of Golden Promise. After making so many American pale ales its rather pleasant to have something a little less bold.
 
If I was going to make a beer of this style I would use golden promise and caramalt it possible Maris otter low colour and golden promise as the base.

I would use challenger as the bittering hop and the pioneer as the aroma hop.

I would use timothy Taylor yeast to add body but mash low
 
Reading the post above about crystal its caramalt your atfer. Extremely pale British crystal.
 
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
 
Gravity said:
This is great for IPAs and ESBs
Click to expand...

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
 
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.
 
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
 
MSK_Chess said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
JKaranka said:
In British golden ales Cascade is fairly typical and I do like blends of Cascade, EKG and Saaz.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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.
 
65C said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
65C said:
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.
Click to expand...

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

Similar threads

TheOriginalDBS
Oatwine Recipe
Replies
1
Views
451
AlexKay
A
BugAC
Grapefruit Heavy Pale Ale/Hops
Replies
4
Views
335
day_trippr
day_trippr
Dovage
AI Recipe
Replies
5
Views
871
Brooothru
Brooothru
yard_bird
Simple: Imperial Stout
2
Replies
43
Views
2K
yard_bird
yard_bird
T
mocha frappucino milk sout or imperial milk stout
Replies
6
Views
1K
Kickass
K
InkBird 300

Latest posts

Back
Top