Youngs Harvest Scottish Heavy

Has anyone else brewed this?

Bought this earlier, not sure what to expect both in taste and strength but variety is the spice of life so I'll give it a go.

Using 1kg brewing sugar and 500g medium spray malt. I'll put this on possibly tomorrow but most likely next week.

GlentoranMark said:

Has anyone else brewed this?

Bought this earlier, not sure what to expect both in taste and strength but variety is the spice of life so I'll give it a go.

Using 1kg brewing sugar and 500g medium spray malt. I'll put this on possibly tomorrow but most likely next week.

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The "Scottish" style of beers were a response to a tax on hops imposed by the English (loud "boo" heard from the North). All these beers will be lightly bittered and with no flavour or aroma hops to speak of.

So, sounds like the ideal sort of beer style to replicate from a kit.
1kg sugar and 500g DME also sounds good to me.

Reminds me also of slightly amusing story from a lifetime ago. Two short, stocky lads walk into a Glasgow pub and request "Twa wee heavvies, plees".

I'll be honest, on trips to scotland I'm never that interested in distilleries. It's pints of heavy that make it worthwhile.

I always thought the tax was levied on alcohol volume. Depending on the percentage it was taxed at a given number of shillings. The common over the bar drinks are still called 80 shilling, but you can also get 70 or 90 shilling from the days of the taxation.

Spud said:

I'll be honest, on trips to scotland I'm never that interested in distilleries. It's pints of heavy that make it worthwhile.

I always thought the tax was levied on alcohol volume. Depending on the percentage it was taxed at a given number of shillings. The common over the bar drinks are still called 80 shilling, but you can also get 70 or 90 shilling from the days of the taxation.

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Great information, leading directly to this very interesting link:

http://www.scottishbrewing.com/history/shilling.php

And this, which gives an objective assessment on the use of hops

http://www.winning-homebrew.com/Scottish-70-Shilling.html

Interesting reading. Good heavy is one of the finest drinks out there.

Not really to my taste but this turned out crystal clear and a medium brown colour. It's like a strong ale. I'm not great at describing things but I don't think I woul brew it again. It's not my worst brew (that one ended up down the drain earlier )

Mines came out rank, serious home brew 'twang' despite swapping out the yeast for Wilkos (Nottingham?).

Can't find my notes at the moment (house/room re-shuffle) to try figure out where I went wrong but if my memory serves me correct, I'm sure I went with a BE2 kit plus 500g DME and temp around ~20' for 2-3 weeks.

Time in the bottle hasn't helped one bit, still got a few left and will only drink them when I've ran out of mouthwash :shock:

Tbh, I don't think I've ever had a good 1 can kit. Not that I've done a lot but my two can kits just seem to be in a different league. And even then, my AG spanked them :-D

GlentoranMark said:

Not really to my taste but this turned out crystal clear and a medium brown colour. It's like a strong ale. I'm not great at describing things but I don't think I woul brew it again. It's not my worst brew (that one ended up down the drain earlier )

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love the colour

any brew that is drinkable is a result


and im showing my age when i say i love the glass it is in....

only dimpled i have are steins and i get in trouble when i use em

My LHBS recommends a spray malt and or beer enhancer to maximise these kits.

I quite want to do a 80/- type, from the reviews here, I'm feeling that I might be better with a concentrated wort rather than one of these kits as my base.

Thanks for the honesty and reviews.

I brewed a few of these a while back after getting them in a tesco sale and really enjoyed them. I also used two of them in a brew and it turned out very well, very moreish.

My glass is the reason I've got back into home brewing. I visited a pub in Prague called U Fleku that had a brewery attached to it but they brew the most amazing dark lager I've ever tasted I found a recipe for it although it is rather specialised and complicated but I'll get to it eventually. The glass was bought in their shop, usual tourist tat but the pub is an experience and I'd recommend any visitor to Prague to go there.

This was my last kit before I moved to All Grain. The beer did have a decent head and it's pretty clear so I'm pleased in that respect but since I've moved to all grain the difference is like night and day and I'll never move back to kits. As brewed I'm really happy but it does have that kit twang to it. I don't think I'll be brewing a kit again although I may try that Woodford Wherry everyone is raving about if it comes on sale in Tesco's again.

Thanks for the feedback guys.
http://en.ufleku.cz/

18/06/15. This is a single 1.5kg kit but uses 1.5kg of "sugar" to make a stronger than average beer. I dissolved 500g of Demerara sugar in some boiled water and let it cool, then added this to 1kg of youngs beer enhancer in the bucket. The wort in the can was darker than the usual stuff you get and had a different, almost spicy smell about it so it will be interesting to see how this beer tastes. I pitched at around 23 degrees to 21 litres (the instructions said 40 pints of 5 gallons - don't know why they only do it in imperial) as I didn't read them until checking, so it might be slightly weaker than intended. OG is 1050/52 so it will be around 5.3%. Smell at brew, not strong but faintly malty as expected...taste at brew, very sweet, light and smooth. Kind of very light creamy, no lingering bitterness at all. Similar taste to a cold sweet weak milky tea or even a bit weak cold sweet coffee. This will be interesting to taste after fermentation.
Bottled 04/07/15 - 16 days. No hop additions as I want to see this style as it is intended - was really cloudy which might be due to hot weather. Put it straight in the garage rather than in house for secondary fermentation as it is very warm here at the moment. Taste at bottling, high alcohol taste but not much else. 1010 final gravity.

07/07/15 - after three days in garage this has cleared. Tried one for experiments sake even though it is still really green. Smooth and has good carbonation although with a Homebrew twang at this stage. Quite pale like Simply Bitter. Looking forward to see how this develops.

26/07/15 this is not a bad beer at all although some of the bottles are hit and miss regarding carbonation. When fully carbonated it tastes like a smooth sweetish beer and certainly worth drinking, but when flat can have a home brew twang to it. I suppose if I left it for a few months it would be pretty good consistently. My brother in law likes it because he doesn't like the hoppy beers I am doing as much as plain malty beers so this is up his street.

Got 2 of these in the tesco sale (for under £14 with 2 youngs beer enhancers and the clubcard boost) to brew up for xmas.

I was going to go off plans with one of them and taste the difference.

Was planning to brew the 2nd batch with a tin of treacle instead of the extra 500g of sugar, swapping out the yeast for a white labs liquid yeast (would it be worth doubling the yeast in the unaltered brew?) and then dry hopping with phoenix pellets.

Hoping it's not too many tweaks at once.

Advice/warnings welcome.

wfr42 said:

Advice/warnings welcome.

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If this is gonna be your Xmas brew, make sure you have a backup plan :-o

Both the OP and myself had 'homebrew twang' problems with this kit. I used a brew enhancer and a third party yeast - Wilkos (Nottingham) iirc.

However... there is some good reviews on it over on Tesco, so do give it a go (well, you kind of have to now you own it!). As the saying goes though, "hope for the best but... plan for the worst!".

I'm starting to think my taste buds are hyper sensitive to the 'twang' but oh boy, this kit gave them a good kicking :cry:

Brewed these with 500g dark spray malt and 1kg of youngs beer enhancer. One with treacle (to be heavily hopped.
Hydrated the kit yeast and bubbled well for the first week, now possibly a bit too cool in the shed (with insulation).
SG was around 1.040 for both, bit higher for the treacled kit and a bit lower for the non treacle, both reading 1.010 this evening.
Assuming I have a slightly lower ABV than others as I haven't used any "straight"sugar?

Had my 330ml samples of each tonight.
Bottled 25 of each and mixed the balance in a PB

Nicely clear with minimal head at the moment The straight kit is drinkable, quite a bland malty brew, but even with the spray malt and bke noticeably thinner than a premium kit.
Pleased that my additions (of a can of treacle and 50g of phoenix hops) have improved the 2nd kit and would be tempted to do that again during the tesco sale.

I used (and hydrated) the kit yeast, not sure if substituting the yeast has potentially caused others problems.

Hi!
I'm sorry to add a reply after a couple of months, but I've just opened the first bottle of this brew, and it's delicious!
I picked up three of these kits for £3.50 each at an auction and trawled the forums for advice on tweaking the brew to improve it.
I used one kit and added 650g jar of Potter's malt extract, from H&B's penny sale, 300g Cooper's BE1 for the maltodextrin, one can Lyle's black treacle and 500g light DME. I got this to be equivalent to 1680g sugar (the instructions call for 1500g). Brewed short to 20 litres and pitched rehydrated Safale S-04 at 18 degrees Celsius.
Primary for one week, then racked to secondary for two weeks conditioning and threw in a handful of Fuggles pellets.
Cold conditioning for two weeks and bottled (about 19 litres, 75g sugar for priming). ABV 5.25% before priming. Racked into bottling bin through muslin as there seemed to be black bits floating in the beer.
Two-and-a-half weeks at 21 degrees Celsius.
Tried a bottle, chilled in fridge for a couple of hours. I thought I was going to be disappointed when I opened the bottle - although there was a pleasant hiss, the surface of the beer didn't show any effervescence. It poured beautifully clear with a strong, creamy head. It was a dark brown colour, very much like John Smith's Magnet, and clear as a bell. It has a nice aroma and a gorgeous malty flavour with only a light bitterness and a hint of sweetness. The carbonation was excellent, not too fizzy.
I'm very pleased with this beer and look forward to enjoying the remaining bottles, which are going into a cool garage in a couple of days, for two more weeks (if I can leave it alone 😀).

just brewing today, got 2 cans in tesco sale, going to use both cans , and add 200g lactose, 400g enhancer, 3 x500g spray malt and 200g Belgian candi sugar. looking for around 4% abv and a smooth creamy dark bitter any comments welcome