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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Aleby 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.
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.
…and drinking of course. As my friend Liz Knox asked for more quotes in my posts I will give them. Given we are about to bottle and store away the fruits of our labors to prepare them for consumption I thought this was appropriate.
Filled with mingled cream and amber I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber Through the chambers of my brain — Quaintest thoughts — queerest fancies Come to life and fade away; Who cares how time advances? I am drinking ale today. – Edgar Allan Poe (American short-story Writer, Editor, Poet and Critic, 1809-1849)
This is the final post in our getting started series. I have to say they have been fun to do and have helped me analyze and question my own techniques and process, improving them along the way. As I noted in the first post of this series, brewing is a journeyman profession.
As with all the other steps in our process I have included photos, again from the Best Bitter I used in both the brewing and fermentation post. Lets get on to business
Bottling Equipment
Equipment and Additional Ingredients
There are some basic equipment requirements when it comes to bottling beer.
1) Bottles – You can either reuse beer bottles from brews acquired at the store or go to a homebrew supplier and buy them there. If you reuse commercial beer bottles make sure they are not screw tops as these require additional equipment not commonly available at homebrew suppliers.
Ensure the bottles are made from dark coloured glass. Over exposure to bright light can cause the beer to get a skunky smell caused by a chemical reaction in the hop oil from an over exposure to ultraviolet light. Whatever your choice, the bottles need to be cleaned thoroughly and dried before bottling can commence using a bottling brush and some HOT water.
Bottles typically come in 3 sizes, either 12 oz, 16 oz, or 22 oz. There are others including growlers and wine bottles. The choice is yours. My only advice is to use a bottle that provides enough ale for a single serving. Remember homebrew ales contain live yeast and a small amount will settle to the bottom of the bottle as part of the priming process. We do not want any of the sediment to get into a poured ale which happens if the bottle is swished around while pouring from glass to glass or placed back on the counter half full, churning the yeast in the process. So either decant into a jug or pour a bottle into a single glass.
2) Bottle Caps and a Capper – Regardless of the bottle size you choose the bottle tops are one standard size (except the wine bottle) and one standard bottle cap though there are a couple of different varieties on offer. There is the standard pry-off cap, it can come in plain metal or decorated with a logo. Some commercial breweries sell surplus caps through homebrew suppliers. The second type of cap is a pry-off cap with a special oxygen-scavenging liner that can help reduce oxidation and staling, especially useful in higher alcohol beers such as Imperial IPA or Barelywine which bottle condition for many months.
Bottle Cappers come in a variety of shapes and sizes from automated to incredibly manual. I use a simple manual twin-lever device with a magnet to hold the cap in place.
3) Priming Sugar – In order to create the CO2 in bottled conditioned beer it is necessary to create a mini fermentation by adding some additional sugar for the remaining yeast to convert to CO2. The amount of sugar is too small to make any real change to the final ABV.
Each ale recipe can have its own priming ingredient and methodology. Typically cane sugar is used, it is easily consumed by the yeast and has no flavour, colour or aroma characteristics once fermented. It needs to be highly soluble and dissolve quickly into the beer. Some recipes call for Dried Malt Extract, or syrup, both which require boiling for 15-20mins and left to cool before adding to the bottling bucket. Unless mentioned, all recipes on this site will use confectioners sugar, typically 3/4 cup to 1 cup depending on the level of carbonation. Do not go over a cup or risk some mini explosions as bottle caps are forced off from too much pressure being created in the bottle. Confectioners sugar is very fine and dissolves easily into the beer.
We also need a bottling bucket, preferably with a spigot, a siphon, racking cane, and a sanitized long wooden or plastic spoon to gently mix the sugar into the beer.
Process
1) After the ale has been in the secondary fermenter, typically for 5-7 days or as instructed by the recipe, it is ready to be bottled. First assemble the equipment outlined above, if the priming sugar has been boiled, ensure it has been cooled to room temperature before we begin.
2) Next, attach the siphon tube to racking cane. If any hops or other adjuncts were added to the secondary fermentation it may be necessary to attach a small filter to the end of the racking cane to avoid any particles getting into the bottled beer.
3) Remove airlock from the carboy, insert racking cane and siphon off into a clean bottling bucket being very careful to avoid the sediment sitting on the bottom of the carboy. I tilt the carboy forward as the beer drains to ensure we get as much beer out of the bottle leaving all the sediment behind.
Ensure the siphon tubing is coiled around the bottom of the bottling bucket and the beer does not splash as it enters the bucket. Splashing causes the beer to aerate. At this stage of the brewing process oxygen is our enemy. We need a little oxygen to re-invigorate the remaining yeast cells to replicate and consume the small amount of priming sugar, but too much will lead to stale beer. Too much oxygen can also cause the yeast to over produce leaving a lot of sediment and create cloudy beer with a heavy yeast taste, again bad.
Adding 3/4 cup of priming sugar
Stir gently to avoid overly aerating the beer
4) Transfer the now filled bottling bucket to the bottling area, mix the priming sugar or solution to the beer and stir very gently so as not to aerate the beer.
Case of 12 oz beer bottles
Filling the bottle
5) Position empty bottle under the bottling bucket spigot and fill bottle leaving about 1/2 inch open at the top. Don’t worry about the oxygen in the top of the bottle, the CO2 generated by the priming sugar will force it to the top of the bottle and away from the precious ale.
Place cap on now filled bottle
Place capper over bottle like so
Push down on levers, crimping the cap around the edge of the bottle
and you are done
Don't forget to clean and santize your equipment!
6) Put caps on bottle and store in a dark cool place for as long as the recipe states. Two weeks is usually enough to test a bottle to check for successful carbonation, but I would let the ale sit for a couple of weeks before cracking open the case proper. Most ales will hit a peak at around 1 month in the bottle, higher ABV ales can rest for months and sometimes years. Yeah sure, not in my house.
Finally, sit back, crack open a brew, and pour (remember one single pour leaving the small amount of sediment in the bottom of the bottle) and quaff down the fruits of your hard earned labor. Brewing is a fun process, and its fun to discover the flavours, aromas, and colours created by the various combination of hops and grain and the various strains of yeast.
Have fun and please leave comments on the this page about any additional tips and tricks you have found helped you while on your own brewing adventures.
This recipe and process can be found here. Recipe feed for this pass can be found here.
Greene King Abbot Ale
Abbots Special Bitter is my first attempt at creating one of my wife’s favorite British Ales, Greene King Abbot Ale. She describes the ale as “smooth with a nice hint of apples”. It is this hint of fruit we will try to recreate in this classic Extra Special/Strong Bitter classed English Pale Ale.
Greene King Abbot Ale is steeped in history. Brewed in the old English town of Bury St Edmunds in the heart of Suffolk, the brewery sits along side the historic ruins of the old “Great Abbey” where, according the Doomsday Book, the local Abbot hired “cerevisiarii” or ale brewers as servants over 1000 years ago. The ale is still made from water drawn from the chalk heavy wells used all those years ago.
According to the Greene King web site the ale contains no wheat, is made from malted barley, is 5.0% ABV, and uses finings to clear the ale. On the brewing process page they claim to use Fuggles and Challenger hops.
Next stop was to check the The Real Ale Almanac by Roger Protz. This is the bible of Real Ales covering every ale in the British Isles. The book provides tasting notes, descriptions of the brewery and its process, water source and ingredients (where available). From the almanac we get Pale Malt, Amber Malt, Crystal and the use of cane sugar. We also get an IBU of 30 and OG of 1048 and 90 min boil time. I could find nothing on SRM so I did some hands on research and purchased a can of draft Abbot Ale from the local Blanchards. I observed a copper to light brown colour, an SRM of approx 12-13. Not exact science I know, but it was a fun piece of research to carry out. It is often necessary to make sacrifices for ones research.
Finally I inputted all these variables into Hopville.com and played around with the mix of quantities until I came up with something near to the constraints provided above.
Base Malt: I replaced the Pale base malt with Light DME. Nuff said. I used a little cane sugar (as stated in the alamanc to bring the OG to 1050 and get the final ABV as near 5.0% as I could).
Specialty Grains: This proved difficult. We need to get the colour to around an SRM 13 and give a strong malt flavour to balance the moderately bitter 30 IBU. The almanac called for Amber and Crystal malt. To give colour without adding to the OG I used an Crystal 80 and then made up the ABV with Amber. The Crystal 80L should provide a moderate caramel flavour.
Hops: Given the higher Alpha % I went with Challenger as the bitterness hop and Fuggles as the aroma and used the quantities required to bring the IBU to approx 30.
Yeast: This is guess work. We want a yeast that provides fruity esters (for the apple taste) and a high attenuation to get a 5.0 ABV from an OG of 1050. I like to use the liquid yeasts with yeast starters so checked out the current strains available from Wyeast and White Labs. We also know they use finings, used to brighten an ale and remove yeast and proteins left behind from the primary fermentation. This would hint to the brewer using a yeast with low to medium flocculation as finings are not typically required when using high flocculating yeast.
Abbots Special Bitter (BJCP Beer Style: Extra Special/Strong Bitter, category: English Pale Ale)
5 Gallon, 90 min boil
OG 1050, FG 1012
5.0% ABV
30 IBU
13° SRM
Ready to drink in 6-7 weeks
Base Malt and Fermentables:
4 lbs 12 oz Light Dry Malt Extract (90 mins)
Specialty Grains:
12 oz Amber Malt
8 oz English Crystal 80L
Hops
Bittering Hop – 1.25 oz Challenger (90 mins)
Aroma Hop – 1 oz English Fuggles (10 mins)
Other Additions
1 tsp Irish Moss (30 mins)
2 oz Cane Sugar (after boil is complete)
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)
Prime and store in the bottle for at least 2 weeks before consuming
Peak flavour will be reached after 4 weeks in the bottle
Dogfish Head 90 min IPA clone (dry hopped in the secondary for 7 days, cold conditioned in fermenter for 7 days and then bottled for 3 months) – now 2 weeks in the bottle and I tried the test bottle to see if the priming sugar had worked. It had 🙂 The flavour was getting their but this beauty is going to definitely need at least 3 months to bring out the malt, the hop flavour is very prominent
Drinking
British ESB in the keg (stored at 55°) served using BeerGas system
Old Ale in the bottle (1 month in the secondary, 1 1/2 months bottle conditioned) only 5 left 🙁
I noticed in my first recipe post (here) that I inserted jargon around beer style categories and used acronyms such as BJCP without actually giving any detail as to meaning and importance. My bad, but it got me thinking that a write up on beer classifications would provide a great framework to begin discussions around recipe creation as we begin to build and review different recipes.
…is to promote beer literacy and the appreciation of real beer, and to recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills. We certify and rank beer judges through an examination and monitoring process.
The BJCP was founded in 1985 and has administered the Beer Judge Examination to 5,299 individuals worldwide. 3,126 are currently active judges in the program, with 481 holding the rank of National or higher. Since we started keeping detailed records, our members have judged over 510,871 beers and we have sanctioned over 3,805
For the current year (2009), 58 exams have been registered. Exams have been given to 570 examinees. Organizers have registered 310 competitions. More detailed statistics can be found in the Database Reports section of the website. competitions.
(My italics) By creating a set of standards for judging beer the BJCP has created a defacto standard for classifying beer now used by almost every homebrew calculator, book, website, and in almost all beer competitions. These classifications provide a great starting point for the new homebrewer to begin researching their own new recipes.
Each style listed by the BJCP contains a number of sub-categories outlining general characteristics, guidelines, and requirements an ale is assessed against when placed into competition. These guidelines include aroma, flavour, appearance, and mouthfeel. Assessment requirements include Specific Gravity (OG & FG), colour (SRM), bitterness (IBU’s), and Alcohol By Volume (ABV). A recommended range of values is provided for each of the above. These guidelines therefore provide an excellent place to start when beginning to craft your own recipe.
Given the focus of this blog lets focus on the various categories of British ale. A complete style guide can be found here. Arguably the most popular British Ale style is “Category 8 – English Pale Ale”. English Pale Ale is broken down into 3 sub-categories:
Standard/Ordinary Bitter
Special/Best/Premium
Extra Special/Strong Bitter.
It is not uncommon to hear the phrase “A pint of Best”, or “pint of your Ordinary” in an English Pub. Each brewery would typically have one of each of the 3 categories, each with its own unique flavour, aroma, colour and strength.
Standard/Ordinary
Vital Statistics:
OG 1.032 – 1.040
IBU 25-35
FG: 1.007 – 1.011
SRM 4 – 14
ABV 3.2 – 3.8%
So lets translate the above table into English. With a recommended ABV of 3.2-3.8% these styles of ale are low alcohol making them light and easy to drink. The low alcholol level accounts for a lower OG. With a FG around 1.007 most of the sugars have been converted into alcohol and with IBU’s in the high 20’s-30’s give these ales quite a dry and bitter taste. A higher ABV would smooth the bitterness out but this is not the case here. The SRM dictates a light yellow to copper colour so a light Crystal Malt may be used giving us a hint of caramel flavour.
Some commercial examples of Ordinary Ale include: Fuller’s Chiswick Bitter, Adnams Bitter, Young’s Bitter, Greene King IPA, Tetley’s Original Bitter, Brakspear Bitter, Boddington’s Pub Draught (All good session beers and great with pub food).
Special/Best/Premium
Vital Statistics:
OG 1.040 – 1.048
IBU 25-40
FG: 1.008 – 1.012
SRM 5 – 16
ABV 3.8 – 4.6%
As the above table highlights a pint of Best is very similar to the Ordinary. The similar bitterness profile combined with the higher ABV leaves a smoother, more balanced malt flavour but with the bitterness still coming through. A high FG still gives a dry ale but not as dry as the ordinary and the darker colour (gold to copper) provides for potentially more crystal malt or a darker strain and a stronger caramel flavour.
Some commercial examples of Best Bitter include: Fuller’s London Pride, Adnams SSB, Young’s Special, Shepherd Neame Masterbrew Bitter, Ruddles County Bitter (all have been personal favorites of mine).
Extra Special/Strong Bitter
Vital Statistics:
OG 1.048 – 1.060
IBU 30-50
FG: 1.010 – 1.016
SRM 6 – 18
ABV 4.6 – 6.2%
Strong Bitter is most commonly served as an ESB and is probably my favorite overall English Pale Ale category. This ale is the most balanced in flavour between hop and malt thanks to both the high OG and IBU. The deeper golden to deep copper colour gives a richer caramel taste with the opportunity to use some of the darker or roasted malts in small quantities giving a nuttier, biscuit like quality. This category provides the greatest flexibility to the brewer given the wide range of values which is reflected in the wide variety of ESB’s on the market.
Some commercial examples of ESB include: Fullers ESB, Adnams Broadside, Shepherd Neame Bishop’s Finger, Young’s Ram Rod, Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery Pale Ale, Bass Ale, Whitbread Pale Ale, Shepherd Neame Spitfire, Marston’s Pedigree, Morland Old Speckled Hen, Greene King Abbot Ale, Bateman’s XXXB, Shipyard Old Thumper.
Bringing it all together –
So now its our turn to figure out our own British Bitter recipe. The easiest way to begin is to use a brewers calculator, such as the one found at Hopville.com, and construct a recipe. As we add ingredients the calculator updates SRM, IBU, ABV, OG and FG helping us structure the perfect ale. To check whether your ale conforms to your chosen category simply select your style in the calculator and it will compare your recipe against the BJCP guidelines and provide the appropriate feedback.
Remember as we are only focused on extract based recipes for English Pale Ale use Light Dry Malt Extract as the base malt with maybe some Amber DME for a darker colour. For specialty grains play around with the various degrees of Crystal malt for colour and flavour, maybe a small amount of black or toasted malt such as Victory for nutty overtones. For hops Fuggles, Target, Kent Goldings, and Williamette are all good places to start. To get going and perfect your own brew.
Of course there is no substitute for actually trying one out. So give it a shot and please post recipes in the comments or email me with a description and I will post them.
, Roger Protz
(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 –
. This is the bible of Real Ales covering every ale in the British Isles. The book provides tasting notes, descriptions of the brewery and its process, water source and ingredients (where available). From the almanac we get Pale Malt, Amber Malt, Crystal and the use of cane sugar. We also get an IBU of 30 and OG of 1048 and 90 min boil time. I could find nothing on SRM so I did some hands on research and purchased a can of draft Abbot Ale from the local Blanchards. I observed a copper to light brown colour, an SRM of approx 12-13. Not exact science I know, but it was a fun piece of research to carry out. It is often necessary to make sacrifices for ones research.
