Beer formula recently discovered from 1825 Archives

***----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

Awright. Turn in your beer drinking permission slip. Commenting on a beer you've never tasted is heresy in the beer world.

I'd like to taste it, but only if someone else went to all the work, and I didn't have to make a 9 gallon taste test.

Beer drinkers have such a fine palate. I used to tend bar. Had a regular who would come in, and order two beers because if I only brought him one, he's be finished before I came round again. Nice gun, good tipper. Used to comment on how good his taster was. After three or four, I slipped him a glass of something he didn't drink. How's that ****? Great, he said. I told him that I had switched to a brand he expressly stated he didn't like.

Proved my point.

Steve

Proved your point and lost your tip? BTW: What kind of gun did he have?

Tom

***----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

Obviously you did, but afterwards was he *still* a good tipper?

---- Diogenes

The wars are long, the peace is frail The madmen come again . . . .

He took it very well, actually. And I never ever slipped him a substitute again. Even told him that now that I'd made my point that there was no need to repeat it. If I saw him hit the door, I'd draw two and have them ready. That was enough to keep his tipping streak alive. Yeah, that, and when he was down to 1/4th of a beer, have another ready. And if he said he didn't want another, I'd just say, well, then don't pay for something you don't want, and he'd drink it or part, or I'd dump it.

Steve

***----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

Yeah. He took it well.

Steve

The above recipe is intriguing to me. It appears to be not a very wimpy beer, but fairly strong, and could be classified similar to a Baltic-style porter. Here's my best guess of how I would tackle it:

5 gallon recipe OG~1.070 ABV~7% IBU~34 SRM~29

7.25 lb British mild ale malt

3.5 lb British treacle 2 oz Kent Goldings (leaf hops, 5.5% alpha, 60 minutes) Wyeast 1313 London ale yeast

Make a reasonably big starter a couple days in advance. Mash the malt alone at 158 F for 1 hour -- thick mash of about 0.9 qts/lb. Infuse with boiling water and sparge as normal. Bring to boil, add treacle and hops, and boil for an hour as normal. Chill to 64 F and pitch yeast. Ferment 7 days at 64 F. Secondary if desired. Prime and bottle or keg as normal.

I might have to try this recipe one day. It will require some bravery as the character of treacle/molasses can be pretty severe. But it should be interesting to try, once anyway. If anyone out there wants to try it, let me know how it turns out!

-- David M. Taylor "Just a drink, a little drink, and I'll be feeling GOOooOOooOOooD!!"

-- Genesis, 1972-ish

Sounds like a lot of treacle to me for 5 gallons...let me know how it turns out...

Ace

Too much treacle in it for me. That doesn't make it wrong, just not my personal taste. I've brewed with treacle, and a little goes a long way in my opinion.

Oddly enough, I could not find a listing for Wyeast 1313. 1028 is "London Ale". Typo, or just a variant?

Steve Bonine wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

There's treacle and then there's treacle. Dark treacle has that distinctive, strong molasses taste (which I can't stand), but the golden treacle doesn't. I don't know what sort "British treacle" is, but if it's the lighter variety, 3 lbs may not overwhelm your palate so much.

Do you think there is enough hops for that much sweetness?

Tom

Tom Biasi wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Not for me. But if the treacle is very light, perhaps it ferments out fairly dry...?

Use the light kind of treacle, not the dark stuff. The BU:GU ratio is about 0.5, so there should be plenty of bitterness. Treacle is 90% fermentable so it's not going to turn out to be sweet really, which is also why I specified a thick mash at 158 F to help compensate for what would otherwise be a very very dry beer.

-- David M. Taylor "Just a drink, a little drink, and I'll be feeling GOOooOOooOOooD!!"

-- Genesis, 1972-ish

The peck of barley from back then probably wouldn't.

Tom

Tom Biasi wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

You'd just have to use a simple quintuple-decoction mash. It takes three days, but while you're waiting on the protein rest, you can churn your butter.