Got the British Strong ale brewed yesterday. Had no issues withe the actual brewing. But had to do some quick mods to it.
I lost like about 1 1/2 pounds of grain in the back seat of the jeep. (Just the Maris Otter. I had the other grain in separate bag.) I had no other grain to make up for it, so I went with less volume.
I ended up with about 4 1/2 gallons into fermenter. But the numbers were on. Looking at an OG of 1.070
The Windsor yeast explodes in to action as usual.
Coming up on the next brew. The British Strong ale.
When this category first hit the books for the 2015 styles, I was anxious to brew one. But with no examples to be found, I had to go by the written description only. Which is a fairly non specific scribbling.
https://guidelines.beerstyles.co/2015-17a-british-strong-ale/
Mmmkay. So, as long as its strong enough, and is “British”-y enough we are good. I have taken all of this to mean something that’s in between a bunch of other beers. Something stronger than a brown ale, well hopped, but not as hoppy as an IPA, and not as strong as a barleywine.
Along the lines of an ESB, but with much darker flavors, (slight roasts, raisin, figs…) But fresh.
So like an Old ale, that’s not aged. The name is Strong Ale, but by todays standards it more a medium ale. 6-8% with mid range bitterness 30-60.
My first attempt at this beer last year gave me some insight on how some of those flavors work earlier on in the life of a beer. Because normally when I have brewed “old ales” I plan for the long haul.Over hopping and over dark graining a brown ale, because I know by the time the aged qualities start to happen, the hops and some of the malt flavors will have started to fall out.
But keep in mind that unlike an old ale, this is supposed to be drank sooner than later, we needed to subdue some of that. Crystal 80 instead of 120, Lower srm chocolate malts instead of black malt for restrained roasty. Less late hops over all, and moving them twards the flavor zone rather than flameouts. And moving the mash temp down a few degrees as these will be consumed before the body starts to go.
And the biggest improvement is going to be using a British yeast. I used a clean yeast the first time around. But that was mostly on purpose. As I wanted to be able to see which way I needed to adjust the malts, as I was surely expecting for such a little amount of the 80L to have such an effect. But surprisingly I was happy with the result across the board. So I am going to keep things the same except a bit higher mash temp and good old Windsor yeast.
Akatosh- British Strong Ale 17A 6.5% – 55 IBU
Back in March I brewed a weissenbock. Been waiting patiently for this one. During OKTOBERFEST this year I finally got into it.
The last time I made this beer it took quite a few months to develop its profile.
Did a few tweaks to it this time. Tweaks is a bad word because most changes were pretty big. Including using all malt instead of half extract. And yeast change. Used S-23 instead of Munich yeast.
This beer turned out very good. Malty but not over sweet. Just enough hopping to barely notice them. But I think I should go back to the Munich yeast. This S-23 just don’t have the right taste for a bock.
Still doesn’t have a pronounced wheat to it. And am now considering going rye or partly rye to get some of that bite.
9stripe Brewing 