British Brewer

Top 10 Brews of 2009

I am not much into lists but it seems to be the rage around this time of year.  I thought I would compile my list of favorite brews/recipes we brewed over the last 12 months as rated by myself, my family and friends.  Despite ranking I would recommend all of the following recipes, so lets get to it.

#10 Pale Ale Kit from OakBarrel.com – This was one of my families favorites, a full bodied, full flavored Pale Ale, uses American yeast and hops and produces a very smooth ale that improves with age. I have made 2 batches over the last 18 months.

#9 Nut Brown Ale from OakBarrel.com – This was a favorite of the wife, an American style Nut Brown, really smoothed out with age, full bodied with a great nutty malty taste.

#8 London ESB from NorthernBrewer.com – This would have been higher but I some issues with the ESB yeast during the summer, it is a little fussy when the heat spikes.  We had builders coming in and out of the cellar all summer which really messed with the climate.  Once I finally got the brew right it produced one of my favorite keg beers of the year.  Its a strong ale that drinks like a session brew, be careful with this one as it creeps up on you.

#7 Peat Smoked Porter from NorthernBrewer.com – A rich porter I brewed twice this year.  You can really taste the peat in the smoked barley, adding some single malt whisky notes to the finish.  A very smooth, incredibly rich drink with strong coffee and chocolate flavour, makes a great after dinner drink.  Could have been higher but it really is very rich and not something you may want on a regular basis.

#6 Kentish Best Bitter from BritishBrewer.com – This was the Christmas brew in the house and very popular gift with friends and family.  My parents liked the fresh medium-bodied, real ale like mouthfeel that left them wanting a second glass.  It is light, well balanced ale made from a single hop variety.  I personally loved the colour, its the brightness, clearest ale I have ever made.  Its a beautiful, crystal clear light copper/red.  I did not place it higher as the recipe still needs work.

#5 Dry Irish Stout from NorthernBrewer.com – I may never need to create a Guinness recipe clone while we have this Northern Brewer kit available.  It is a very refreshing stout, clean, dry and goes down really smooth with all the coffee flavours of the original. I serve this chilled with a stout tap and BeerGas in the keg.  One of my favorite stout recipes ever and one of the most popular brews I’m commissioned to make for parties and events.

#4 English IPA from NorthernBrewer.com – This is a big ale from Northern Brewer.  A full bodied IPA, not as spicy as its American cousins. Its a refreshing, fruit laden beverage with a hoppy aroma. The malt comes through with age leading to a full-bodied ale that pairs nicely with a spicy curry in the late night hour.

#3 Sinistral Warrior IPA from NorthernBrewer.com – I have my second batch of the year bottle conditioning as we speak and I hope to crack a bottle on my birthday.  This is an ale in the tradition of DogFish Head 60min IPA, a little overly hopped, peppery with a bright rich golden colour.  Its a potent brew that goes down a little too easily.

#2 Spitfire Ale from the Clone Brews book – I brewed this for my dad earlier this year and it quickly became a family favorite.  A clone of the classic from Shepherd Neame Brewery in Kent. Its hard to describe, both an explosion of fruit and roast malt mixed up with a caramel butterscotch aroma that is both refreshing and smooth.  You want more, a lot more. It did not last long but nothing does when the family is over visiting (Happy New Year Dad). I have this recipe waiting on deck early in 2010 and will provide a full write-up for the blog.

…and the number one brew of the year is!!!!

#1 New Old Ale from NorthernBrewer.com – It is very rare when everyone, and I mean everyone, loves the same ale.  This was my most popular seller this Christmas, consumed at many a Christmas party, the overall family favorite, and my own personal fav of the year.  It is a complex dark brown ale that needs to be aged and has an ABV nearing a barleywine. I had this one conditioning in the bottle for over 2 months before consuming.  The addition of Jamaican brown sugar leads to a rum flavour at the finish to complement the full-bodied, rich toffee-like malt, balanced out by the sweet Galena hops.  The colour is a beautiful deep brown red that looks glorious in a glass.  This is an ale equally as comfortable in a brandy snifter as a pint glass.  The history of Old Ale is also something quintessentially British, it seems even more appropriate to be the first winner of the British Brewer Brew of the Year (and will be the topic of a future post).

Happy New Year one and all.  I have many resolutions and dreams for the upcoming year. I want to get a job, mainly to fund dreams two and three namely produce my first all-grain brew and perfect a recipe for Fullers London Pride and serve it from an Oak Cask in my own house.

Thanks for reading this blog, I would welcome your own lists in the comments for favorite brews both homebrew and commercial. Raise a glass to the 2000’s and welcome the new decade.

On Tap (28th Dec 2009)

Its been a fun Christmas break so far, made even better by having the chance to drink a few of my own ales in the process.  Its also been an exceptionally busy week in the workshop moving ales from carboy to carboy and into bottles plus brewing a new one so its time for the last “On Tap” update of 2009.

Primary

• Swampswill 6X (1 day) – my first attempt at a true Wadworth 6X clone, only doing a 2.5 gl batch as an experiment which should yield just under a case.  Seemed to go without a hitch with the colour and OG on the money. Yeast is active and all seems well.

Secondary

• Lord Fatbottom Ale (3 days) – ABV after the primary is a stunning 13%.  Viscous hoppy barleywine, the sample glass alone gave me a buzz.  3 days of a 6 month rest down
  

Bottle Conditioning

• Abbots Special Ale (3 days) – this is my first attempt at a Greene King Abbot Ale clone. I have this finishing in a keg pressured with BeerGas. Should be ready before New Year.
  
• American Style IPA (3 days) – nice hoppy IPA, not quite an Imperial but its close. In the bottle, sample was beautiful. I will have a couple of six packs up for grabs in a couple of weeks if anyone wants some.
  
• Chiswick ESB (3 days) – version 1.0 of my Fullers ESB clone I covered in an earlier post. A week in the secondary has altered the flavour somewhat.  The colour still matches the 16 SRM but we will have to wait and see how the final product tastes in 2 weeks when I sample a bottle, it seems a little too sweet.  Not as optimistic as I was last week.
• Dogfish Head 90 min IPA clone – (1 month, 1 week) 1 month and 3 weeks to go
  

Drinking

• Kentish Best Bitter (4 days) – Turns out to be a gem, great with the bubble and squeak on Boxing Day. Wish I had more, only 9 12oz bottles left as most where either sold or given as gifts.  Covered in more detail here.

Recipe: Swampswill 6X (version 1.0)

The recipe and process can be found online here. My wife came up with name Swampswill as a play on Marshfield, with our house backing a large marsh swamp, can’t think were she came up with swill, more like nectar in my opinion.

This is my first attempt at replicating another British Real Ale Classic, Wadworth 6X, brewed at the Northgate Brewery in Devizes, Wiltshire.  This is probably one of the independent classic ales of the South of England with its predominantly malty fruit, full bodied flavour.  It is hard to classify, its sold as a Best Bitter but the hop IBU level is low, below the recommended BJCP minimum for an ale of this class.  I really don’t care, its a fine session brew and something I hope to replicate, if I can, as this beer is VERY hard to come by in the US.

A brilliant example of traditional ale at its best – biscuity, fruity, gently hoppy and wonderfully refreshing. – The Real Ale Almanac, Roger Protz

The Wadworth Brewery Ltd was founded in 1875 by Henry Wadworth, an already accomplished brewer at 22.  He went on to design the impressive Northgate Brewery in 1885 when he, and business partner and friend John Bartholomew, ran out of space. It is is run today as it was then, as a family business.  When built the brewery at Northgate was state of the art with Henry Wadworth building the brewing equipment into the fabric of the building, much of which is still used today.  Back in 1885 power was hard to come by so much of the brewing process incorporated old fashioned gravity to move the wort from mash tun to fermenter to fermenter with cylinders being built inside a grand tower atop the brewery, a similar technique employed by many all-grain homebrewers today.  Northgate is one of the only remaining breweries to employ a full time cooper to build oak casks to ship the ale, (note to self, oak chips to be used in this recipe).

The first 6X was first brewed on June 16th 1921 and has been brewed ever since.  The name XX’s comes from medieval monastic times when literacy levels were poor so monks would mark X’s on oak casks to define the strength of a brew, the more XX’s the stronger the brew.  Between the 2 world wars Wadworth also brewed an XX Mild, XXXX and XXXX pale ale.  It is rumored a young employee at the brewery whose job it was to stencil the XX’s on the casks decided to write 6X instead of the XXXXXX and the name has stuck ever since.

On to the ingredients, as with our last couple of recipes the company website and almanac are very forthcoming with the basic ingredients and parameters for the brew.  The website is kind enough to provide the malt as % with 93% pale malt, 4% crystal, and 3% cane sugar, 85% fuggles and 15% Goldings for the hops.  The SRM is approx 16 and an ABV of 4.3%.  This is probably the most forthcoming brewery I have found yet, these % help a lot but our final breakdown will change as we convert the pale malt into DME.

The almanac provides some additional details, specifically the low IBU level of 23 and confirms the ingredients listed on the website.  It lists the OG as 1040, FG 1008 and an ABV of 4.3%.

Next stop is to input the ingredients into the beer calculus system on hopville.com and balance the quantities in order to create a workable recipe conforming to the constraints above and ingredients available to homebrewers.

Base Malt: Given this is an extract recipe we need to replace the Pale Malt with Light DME. Had no problems balancing the the OG and colour between the base malt and specialty grains so we do not require an additional darker base malt.

Specialty Grains: Both the Almanac and the web site state the use of Crystal as the specialty grain.  After fiddling around on the calculator it became clear we need to use Crystal 120L to get both the malty caramel flavour and the rich colour.  After our apparently successful experience with the Fullers ESB clone (though it is still too early to really tell) it looks like we will also need a little Black Malt to kick the SRM to 16 without having to add too much to the OG and providing some additional rich malty flavour the tasting notes call for.

Hops: As stated in the almanac and the website, we shall be using Fuggles and Goldings. Given the alpha content of the Fuggles hops I have in inventory are higher than average we can use less to gain the stated IBU. The calculator calls for 2/3 Fuggles and 1/3 Goldings.

Yeast: The yeast profile for this brew definitely calls for fruit. The high ABV relative to the lower OG calls for a yeast with high attenuation. The choice for version 1.0 is Wyeast London Ale.

Swampswill 6X (BJCP Beer Style: Special/Best/Premium Bitter, category: English Pale Ale)

• 2.5 Gallon, 60 min boil
• OG 1043, FG 1011
• 4.3% ABV
• 23 IBU
• 16° SRM (Copper to Deep Copper)
• Ready to drink in 6-7 weeks

Base Malt and Fermentables:

• 2 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract (60 mins)
• 3oz Cane Sugar (at the end of the boil)

Specialty Grains:

• 5 oz Crystal Malt – 120L
• 1 oz Black Malt

Hops

• Bittering Hop – 0.5 oz Fuggle (60 mins)
• Aroma Hop – 0.25 oz Kent Goldings (15 mins)

Yeast

• Wyeast London Ale (#1028) (Attenuation 73-77%, Flocculation: Medium Low)

Other Additions

• 1 tsp Irish Moss (30 mins)
• Packet of Isinglass Liquid (to help remove any lingering proteins given the low flocculation level of the yeast)
• 1oz Oak Chips in the secondary

Process

• Please follow the process guidelines outlined in my post here.  You will require all the equipment specified here.
• Primary Fermentation: 5-7 days at 65-75°
• Secondary Fermentation: 2 weeks at 55° (if you can otherwise just 5-7 days in the same location as the primary), add oak chips to the fermenter after soaking the chips for at least 24 hours and sterilizing them.
• Prime and store in the bottle for at least 2 weeks before consuming
• Peak flavour will be reached after 4 weeks in the bottle

Recipe update

Recipes first posted here and here.

Had a busy day moving beer from primary to secondary, secondary to bottles and kegs and had a chance to sample the Kentish Best and the Abbots Special Bitter.

First up the Kentish.  Am happy to report the beer is one of the brightest, clearist I have ever brewed, with the fining’s doing their job.  The SRM and IBU where as expected.  The taste and mouthfeel were that of a real ale best bitter, fresh and very drinkable.  Had mine with some ‘bubble and squeak’, a Boxing Day favorite.  The Fuggles hops came out in the flavour though I felt the beer had a metallic aroma I still cannot trace. Been doing some research on the aroma but have not found an explanation as of yet.

The one big issue I found was my own mistake, I failed to add enough priming sugar to the batch prior to bottling, the ale took longer than expected to carbonate, and when it did, it proved to be a little flat, though not overly so.  This is easily remedied. Given the metallic aroma and the incorrect amount of priming sugar I will need to brew the recipe one more time before it can get promoted to the permanent recipe page here.

The Abbots Special Bitter was a real surprise. First up the ale was nothing like the original so back to the drawing board. That said the finished ale served really well, have it in a keg with a BeerGas mix.  The IBU and SRM were perfect but the taste, flavour and aroma were not Greene King.  The taste lacked the fruit and there was a little too much malt for a recipe that calls for a balanced flavour.  Nonetheless it tastes great, sometime mistakes can lead to great discoveries.

So the Abbot clone recipe needs some work.  For the caramel I will look to change the base malt to include some amber to replace the amber specialty malt reducing the caramel tones.  I found some While Labs Burton Yeast with apple flavour characteristics I will look to try also.  Look for more in the future.

So nothing gets promoted but we have definitely made progress and as always they are fun to make and drink.

Merry Christmas

I just got an email from an old family friend back in England providing some detail to the village Christmas Eve celebrations ahead which seemed to revolve heavily around time spent with friends in pubs drinking ale.  Another reminder of home and the differences between England and the USA.  This Christmas is looking to be a white Christmas for all of us in New England and England alike and as a toast to our old family friend I am going to crack into my Kentish Best Bitter this evening with friends at an annual tradition of our own, the Sheer family Christmas Eve party.  Merry Christmas one and all and drink responsibly.

‘Twas Christmas broach’d the mightiest ale; ’twas Christmas told the merriest tale; a Christmas gambol oft could cheer the poor man’s heart through half the year. – Sir Walter Scott, Scottish Novelist and Poet

On Tap (21st Dec 2009)

Nothing new in the fermenter this week but a couple of new brews are on deck (some Guinness for a friend, and a Wadworth 6x clone (the topic of a post later this week) waiting for a fermenter to become available.  Still nothing ready to drink, the Best Bitter still has another week to go before its ready but lots activity in the workshop so time for an “On Tap” update.

Primary

• Lord Fatbottom Ale (24 days) – fermentation is still going strong. Will be moving to a secondary this weekend

Secondary

• Abbots Special Ale (5 days) – this is my first attempt at a Greene King Abbot Ale clone. The final attenuation % of the yeast was under the minimum, so disappointed. Aroma was not what I wanted either, it tasted okay but not a Green King. Back to the drawing board with this one.  Will be destined for the keg around Christmas
• American Style IPA (3 days) – nice hoppy IPA, not quite an Imperial but its close. FG was on the money as was taste and aroma, its destined for the bottle this weekend and I am looking forward to cracking these open around my birthday
• Chiswick ESB (2 days) – version 1.0 of my Fullers ESB clone I covered in an earlier post. FG, colour and aroma were on the money, I am quietly optimistic this recipe is going to work and be the first to get promoted to the permanent recipes page.

Bottle Conditioning

• Dogfish Head 90 min IPA clone – (1 month) 2 months to go
• Kentish Best Bitter (10 days) – Should be ready to try by christmas, but could definitely do with some aging.

Drinking

• Nothing 🙁 except for some red wine of course and some delicious 120 Minute IPA to warm the cockles on such a snowy day.

What the “flocculation” are you talking about?

Hopefully the title of this blog post grabbed your “attenuation”.  For those who don’t get the joke, this is a post about yeast.  We provided a 101 background in the “Getting Started Series” post but now its time to dig in a little deeper into this magical little fungus.

Top fermenting yeast in an open fermenter, smells yummy

Yeast is truly a magical mould, there were times in our past, before purification systems, when water was unsafe to drink. Ale and wine were seen as staples and a safe form of nutrition (I would argue that with the quality of our food today homebrewed ale remains a safe form of nutrition). Yeast is still considered a powerful nutrient, rich in both B-complex vitamins and an anti-bacterial being the basis of penicillium notatum, the foundation of modern antibiotics. But to beer drinkers around the world yeast is know as the magical fungus responsible for converting sugar into alcohol and putting bubbles in our beer.

God made yeast, as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he loves vegetation. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Types of Yeast

First it is important to differentiate between the two styles of yeast used to brew.  The first is saccharomyces uvarum, often called lager yeast, in which the yeast settles and ferments on the bottom of fermenter.  This type of yeast works at much lower temperatures and ferments more of the sugar leaving a drier, crisper beer.  This yeast is typically used to brew Pilsners and Lagers. It is believed there are very few strains of lager yeast with all lager yeast descending from only 2 primary strains.

The second type of yeast is saccharomyces cerevisiae, often called ale yeast, in which the yeast rises to the surface of the fermenter causing a thick layer of foam called krausen.  This is the type of yeast used to brew all British and most European beers.  There are numerous strains of this type of yeast, each providing very distinctive characteristics you should consider when planning a recipe of which I have highlighted 5 important ones below:

1) Flavour – Ale yeast strains work by synthesizing the sugars and other enzymes derived from the malt. The flavours most commonly associated with ale are esters, resulting in an “ale taste,” as well as more-easily-described flavours such as apple, banana, and pineapple. Combinations of yeast strain, malt, and temperature can be responsible for chemicals causing other flavours, such as a cidery taste or butterscotch.

2) Attenuation – Is a percentage that measures the amount of sugar converted into alcohol during the fermentation process. Lower attenuating yeasts will leave more sugars behind leading to a sweeter taste.  Higher levels lead to a drier taste with alcohol notes.  Most yeast manufactures provide an observed attenuation level for each yeast strain which a brewer can then use when considering the target ABV and taste of a recipe.  I find it helpful to keep your own chart of observed attenuation for the yeast strains you use.  The ranges provided by the suppliers are fairly accurate but will vary depending on your own brewing conditions.  No one wants a yeast to under-perform.

3) Flocculation – Refers to the clumping together of yeast cells once the sugar has been fermented into alcohol.  As the yeast cells clump they begin to fall pulling down other matter suspended in the beer. Larger clumps tend to pull down other particulates suspended in the beer and lead to brighter, clear ales without the need for filtration or additives, know as “high” flocculation. Lower levels or “low” flocculation yeast might need additions such as Isinglass during the secondary fermentation phase to help pull down some of the suspended yeast or proteins left behind.

4) Alcohol Tolerance – Most yeast suppliers supply an ABV tolerance level yeast can reproduce under.  Ales with a high ABV such as Imperial, Barleywine or Old Ales need to be fermented with yeast strains with a high ABV tolerance say 10%. Some varieties of Barleywine that are bottle conditioned will require the use of Champagne yeast to ensure carbonation is successful in the bottle.  Remember to check the tolerance of your chosen yeast is higher than the target ABV.

5) Fermentation Temperature – Refers to the recommended temperature the yeast will perform optimally.  Too warm can lead to off flavours in the ale, too cold and the yeast head on top of the fermenter can fall prematurely and cause a stalled fermentation.

The most important stage for yeast in the brewing process is being pitched into the primary fermenter to begin its work.  Make sure the temperature of the wort is optimal at around 75-80°F, the wort is well aerated to provide the yeast cells the oxygen they need.  Most important make sure the yeast is working.  This can be done by creating a yeast starter.  Bring a pint of water to boil, add some DME, and boil for 15 mins.  Place in a jug, cool, and pitch the yeast. Insert and airlock and watch the yeast go to work.  A healthy yeast will be fully active within 24 hours.

Remember you can replace a yeast but you cannot replace a brew gone bad.  Hope this information helps, I find it most useful when selecting the right yeast to use for a specific recipe. Next up in our deeper dive into ingredients will be the water.

Hypnotic

I must confess to sometimes just going down into the cellar and stare at the magical dance being performed inside the carboys during the peak of primary fermentation.  The sugars and yeasts seem to dance around the fermenter in synchronized motion or just explode like fireworks.

Today is a cloudy, cold, wet, New England day (sounds very British like) so I went  down to the cellar to check on the progress of my brews and found myself again just staring at the fermenters.  So I went upstairs, got my Flip Camcorder (love these things, so easy to use and a snap to publish, all the software is actually on the camera) and recorded some snippets. Enjoy –

Here is a poem about ale I have kept with me through the years, the 3rd verse seemed apt right now. Its by W. H. Davies, a Welsh poet who lived in the late 1800’s through the outbreak of the 2nd World War in 1940. More here.

Ale by William Henry Davies

Now do I hear thee weep and groan,
Who hath a comrade sunk at sea?
Then quaff thee of my good old ale,
And it will raise him up for the
Thoul’t think as little of him then
As when he moved with living men.

If thou hast hopes to move the world,
And every effort it doth fail,
Then to thy side call Jack and Jim,
And bid them drink with thee good ale;
So may the world, that would not hear,
Perish in hell with all your care.

One quart of good ale, and I
Feel then what life immortal is:
The brain is empty of all thought,
The heart is brimming o’er with bliss;
Time’s first child, Life, doth live; but Death,
The second, hath not yet his breath.

Give me a quart of good old ale,
Am I a homeless man on earth?
Nay, I want not your roof and quilt,
I’ll lie warm at the moon’s cold hearth;
No grumbling ghost to grudge my bed,
His grave, ha! ha! holds up my head.

==

More fermentation videos…

Ale vs Beer

Just a quick post this evening, had a busy evening at my kids school.  I am a Trustee and Treasurer at Inly School in Scituate, MA and we had a long board meeting tonight.

I have noticed from re-reading my posts I use the words beer and ale interchangeably. I think nothing of it, I have always believed ale to be a style of beer, where beer is an all encompassing term for all fermented malt based beverages.  But I appear to be wrong.  I read this great post on the Ale vs Beer by Zythophile on the long battle between ale and beer.  Its a long post covering over 5 centuries of history of the hopped and malted beverage but he is a great writer and I have come to enjoy his essays, taking my beer (or is that ale) geekery to new heights.

On a separate note for all beginners I wanted to highlight the completion of my getting started series.  I am busy working on another series of posts (and fixing some of the old, I made some mistakes that need work) really digging into the various ingredients starting with yeast and moving onto water, hops and malt.

You can find the complete series here.

On Tap (13th Dec 2009)

Been busy this week.  Lots of new equipment arrived. It appears that the creation of this blog has peaked the interest of a few friends who have taken a fancy to my brews leaving my cellar empty of bottles so I need to increase production so I get to drink some to.  Thanks to all my founding customers for giving real ale a chance and trusting this novice to deliver your christmas presents and party beverages.  I am truly honored and thank you as does my liver for emptying my cellar.  As I produce new brews and recipes I will be sure to tap you on the shoulder for some taste testing and feedback (no charge) 🙂

This week saw 2 new brews enter the kettle so time for an “On Tap” update.

Primary

• Abbots Special Ale (8 days) – this is my first attempt at a Greene King Abbot Ale clone. Nearing the end of the Primary Fermentation stage
• Lord Fatbottom Ale (16 days) – cannot believe the fermentation is still going strong
• American Style IPA (2 days) – nice hoppy IPA, not quite an Imperial but its close. Will be the topic of a future recipe
• Chiswick ESB (1 day) – version 1.0 of my Fullers ESB clone I covered in an earlier post. I live in hope.

Secondary

• Nothing right now, waiting the for Abbot and Fatbottom to finish.

Bottle Conditioning

• Dogfish Head 90 min IPA clone – (3 weeks) 9 weeks to go
• Kentish Best Bitter (3 days) – I put half in a cask to condition (for me) and the other half in a case.  The contents of the case has all been pre-ordered and some are destined for family gifts ( 😉 dad).

Drinking

• Finished the ESB and sold the last Old Ale so I am dry, all out, ahhhh 🙁
• Time to go down to Blanchards and get some Dogfish Head 90 Min IPA 🙂