Bentley`s Bitter Ale 1896 !!

[Edd Mather 6]

Hi All ,
Here`s a nice (Victorian) session bitter for you lucky mashers to go at ,and yes , I`ve put the equivalent metric temperature use values in there as well ! .
I hope that you enjoy the recipe , I`d love pics of the finished thing .
Re Water & Liquor treatment , a good hard water profile with Burton Characteristics would be good on this one .
Happy Mashing Guys !!

Cheers

Edd

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Hi All ,
Here`s a nice (Victorian) session bitter for you lucky mashers to go at ,and yes , I`ve put the equivalent metric temperature use values in there as well ! .
I hope that you enjoy the recipe , I`d love pics of the finished thing .
Re Water & Liquor treatment , a good hard water profile with Burton Characteristics would be good on this one .
Happy Mashing Guys !!

Cheers

Edd

Ed I don't believe we can get the Chevalier here as yet, is there a substitute we could use?

 

[MHB]

If you are interested in "Old British Beer and How to Make Them" there is a book by that name from the Durden Park Beer Circle.
Follow the links, there are some good recipes on the website, the book has about 130 more, they will need defanging being in pounds, shillings and pence, but they are well researched and tested.

If you are looking for malt, just use Pearle, GP or MO, probably get away with Aussie Ale Malt for most of the beer, the book has instructions for reworking pale malt to be more like what people were using 100-150 years ago.
Chevallier isn't anything special and is I believe falling back out of favour, after having been rediscovered by Crisp a couple of years ago - mind you at nearly $9/kg (the brew shop) it would want to be a better than just good.
Looking at the blurb - I'm a bit surprised at how pale it is, more like a pilsner colour range, most 1800's malt would have been a lot darker, I would use a pale ale, with a bit of biscuit, Munich, melanoidin... to plump the flavour out a bit.
Mark

 

[Edd Mather 6]

If you are interested in "Old British Beer and How to Make Them" there is a book by that name from the Durden Park Beer Circle.
Follow the links, there are some good recipes on the website, the book has about 130 more, they will need defanging being in pounds, shillings and pence, but they are well researched and tested.
View attachment 111899
If you are looking for malt, just use Pearle, GP or MO, probably get away with Aussie Ale Malt for most of the beer, the book has instructions for reworking pale malt to be more like what people were using 100-150 years ago.
Chevallier isn't anything special and is I believe falling back out of favour, after having been rediscovered by Crisp a couple of years ago - mind you at nearly $9/kg (the brew shop) it would want to be a better than just good.
Looking at the blurb - I'm a bit surprised at how pale it is, more like a pilsner colour range, most 1800's malt would have been a lot darker, I would use a pale ale, with a bit of biscuit, Munich, melanoidin... to plump the flavour out a bit.
Mark

Hi Mark ,
One of the many problems in decrypting old brewing records is 'Malt Substitution' ; and I know as fact that some UK maltsters were making Pale Ale malt at up to 8 ebc ( Peach's , Burton on Trent ) .
Chevalier malt is an exellent malt , and well worth brewing with if it's possible to get hold of, quite a few UK micro brewers are using it again , as well as Greene King !!.
Cheers
Edd

 

[Edd Mather 6]

Ed I don't believe we can get the Chevalier here as yet, is there a substitute we could use?

How Do Mate ,
I've had a look round , and I'd substitute the Barrett's / Joe White Pale Malt @ 6.5 ebc as the whole of the malt bill with , Absolutely NO melanoidin or crystal etc , and sub the No 3 invert for No 1 / Glucose ( timings & temps the same)
Cheers
Edd

 

[wide eyed and legless]

If you are interested in "Old British Beer and How to Make Them" there is a book by that name from the Durden Park Beer Circle.
Follow the links, there are some good recipes on the website, the book has about 130 more, they will need defanging being in pounds, shillings and pence, but they are well researched and tested.
View attachment 111899
If you are looking for malt, just use Pearle, GP or MO, probably get away with Aussie Ale Malt for most of the beer, the book has instructions for reworking pale malt to be more like what people were using 100-150 years ago.
Chevallier isn't anything special and is I believe falling back out of favour, after having been rediscovered by Crisp a couple of years ago - mind you at nearly $9/kg (the brew shop) it would want to be a better than just good.
Looking at the blurb - I'm a bit surprised at how pale it is, more like a pilsner colour range, most 1800's malt would have been a lot darker, I would use a pale ale, with a bit of biscuit, Munich, melanoidin... to plump the flavour out a bit.
Mark

Had a look at the recipes, why the long mash time, not that I wouldn't do it just wondering why.

 

[MHB]

I don't think there is any single reason, it is a synergy of factors that made the method used appropriate at the time, but lets look at some of what was going on.

Malting Barley was much less developed than it is today, since a malt like Chevallier was popular we have had about 100 years of plant breading, we have even developed whole new sciences (i.e. genetics) that let us select what the barley brings to the Malt. We have even developed whole new ways to examine what is in the barley/malt, processes like electrophoreses that lets us take the proteins in a barley apart and look at how much of what is in there and select for the most advantageous.
Even a relatively new malt like Maris Otter (developed in 1966) and the oldest malt still in mainstream production really isn't up to snuff in terms of its brewing properties (longer mashes and longer boils 90-120 minutes), it wouldn't still be getting grown if it didn't taste pretty good.
Older malts were a lot more random in terms of proteins and enzyme levels than are modern malts - longer mashes and boils were deriguour.

Malting was almost exclusively Floor Malting, results in much more variance in the malt (some well converted, some less so). Requires longer mashes to fully convert all the undermodified material in the malt.
If you look at the way Druden Park guys treat base malt, I think there will be a lot less amylase when they have finished with it.

Kilning was less exact, leads to darker malt and lower enzyme levels. Again longer mashes required.

Milling wasn't as well controlled, Lauter floors weren't as good, kettles weren't as well designed, temperature control was a lot more erratic....
Really could keep going but I'm sure you get the picture, them was the dark ages and we have moved on a bit.

Edd
I didn't suggest any Crystal Malt, just some "Stewed" malts, the increased Melanoidin levels are a common enough way to make modern malt taste "older" to give a more authentic interpretation of older recipes.
I find brewing history interesting and have explored quite a bit, next up is to look at the enzyme levels of field Shott and Sprung barley, that has then been parched. Just a pet theory on how malt was discovered that fits into Neolithic farming and grain storing practices.
Just waiting for a phone call about a field of barley that got rained on at the wrong time.
Mark

 

[Edd Mather 6]

Had a look at the recipes, why the long mash time, not that I wouldn't do it just wondering why.

How Do ,
A few reasons for the long mash time , mostly to do with equipment and ingredients though .
Well , that and the fact that you can have a dammned good breakfast in two hours !!
Cheers
Edd

 

[Edd Mather 6]

I don't think there is any single reason, it is a synergy of factors that made the method used appropriate at the time, but lets look at some of what was going on.

Malting Barley was much less developed than it is today, since a malt like Chevallier was popular we have had about 100 years of plant breading, we have even developed whole new sciences (i.e. genetics) that let us select what the barley brings to the Malt. We have even developed whole new ways to examine what is in the barley/malt, processes like electrophoreses that lets us take the proteins in a barley apart and look at how much of what is in there and select for the most advantageous.
Even a relatively new malt like Maris Otter (developed in 1966) and the oldest malt still in mainstream production really isn't up to snuff in terms of its brewing properties (longer mashes and longer boils 90-120 minutes), it wouldn't still be getting grown if it didn't taste pretty good.
Older malts were a lot more random in terms of proteins and enzyme levels than are modern malts - longer mashes and boils were deriguour.

Malting was almost exclusively Floor Malting, results in much more variance in the malt (some well converted, some less so). Requires longer mashes to fully convert all the undermodified material in the malt.
If you look at the way Druden Park guys treat base malt, I think there will be a lot less amylase when they have finished with it.

Kilning was less exact, leads to darker malt and lower enzyme levels. Again longer mashes required.

Milling wasn't as well controlled, Lauter floors weren't as good, kettles weren't as well designed, temperature control was a lot more erratic....
Really could keep going but I'm sure you get the picture, them was the dark ages and we have moved on a bit.

Edd
I didn't suggest any Crystal Malt, just some "Stewed" malts, the increased Melanoidin levels are a common enough way to make modern malt taste "older" to give a more authentic interpretation of older recipes.
I find brewing history interesting and have explored quite a bit, next up is to look at the enzyme levels of field Shott and Sprung barley, that has then been parched. Just a pet theory on how malt was discovered that fits into Neolithic farming and grain storing practices.
Just waiting for a phone call about a field of barley that got rained on at the wrong time.
Mark

How Do Mark ,
No offence meant with the Crystal etc remark , and I agree with most of your comments , except for the Temperature control post 1880 or so and Mash Tun Draining Plates , and on the Copper thing , I'd tend to agree with you for direct fired coppers , but quite a few major breweries were using steam power to boil the copper by the time Barnard visited them in the late 1880's ,
And reasonable control of fermentation temp has been around since the late 19th Century
Cheers
Edd

 

[MHB]

I was referring to the recipes in the book above (I think they date back to the 1300's), which was the question asked.
Not specifically to your recipe.

 

[Edd Mather 6]

Hi All ,
The next recipe I post will be a very nice low abv pale mild from Magee Marshall , from 1946 .
It's only about 3.2% and would have been brewed for drinking within a week of brewing , so a nice BBQ quaffer !!
Cheers
Edd

 

[wide eyed and legless]

https://boakandbailey.com/2016/04/magee-marshall-of-bolton-is-making-a-comeback/

 

[Edd Mather 6]

Yup , that's me ! Unfortunately am not able to get it going at the moment, so that's why I'm using the research & knowledge etc to put In the book on old beers and brewing !!
Cheers
Edd

 

[MHB]

Good to see another book on old pommie beers most of us have never heard of let alone had the chance to taste.
If you are going to post recipes on here, why the big red Copyright notice at the top, if you want people to talk about and use them it strikes me as a bit counterintuitive.
Also the format is very old IOB and I'm sure a lot of people wont bother rearranging it. Generally time is just expressed in minutes (i.e. 113/4 Hour Boil, 105 minutes), Hop additions are usually minutes from the end rather than the start, or hop back, whirlpool, dry hop...
Odds on you wont convince anyone to use "old/stale" hops no matter what - well maybe if they are making a Lambic.

I have found the some of the CAMRA Almanacs by Protz handy and their specialty books particularly the IPA one excellent.
Some good reading in Wheelers books notably the Real Ale one, the above "Old British Beers..."

Interesting work, we have a couple of people here in Oz doing something similar, notably Bronzed Brews, shame we have such a relatively short brewing history.

Mark

 

[Edd Mather 6]

Hi Mark ,
The copyright's there to prevent wrongful use , and to preserve my intellectual property rights ; as my recipies are for home brewers only , not commercial production .
The stale or old hops are there because of their neutral ( if low) buttering qualities , and are a KEY part of this recipe .
All of my recipies will have hop charging as from the start of the boil ,
At least I've put the temperature values in metric !
Cheers
Edd

 

[Edd Mather 6]

Hi All ,
Here`s a nice simple recipie from the right side of the hills !! , It`s Boddington`s AK from 1901
Cheers & Happy Mashing

Edd