Anyone Made a Brett Stout?

[strange-steve]

In a couple of weeks I'm planning on brewing an export stout and am very tempted to add some brett B, has anyone here made anything like this? I'm not sure how the earthy brett flavours will mesh with the roasty stout flavours. Any recipe adjustments you'd suggest? I'm thinking reduce the IBUs/up the mash temp so i doesn't end up too bitter/dry?

 

[PhilBrew]

Hi Steve

I've not done this to a stout, but I did get a pack of Brett C in one of BrewUK's "lucky dip" selections of past their use-by date yeasts, and decided to use it to "bulk age" an old fashioned Porter with. The Porter recipe was the Barclay Perkins 1848 "TT" Porter from Ron Pattinson's Vintage Beers book ... I brewed it unchanged from in the book, OG was 1.060, which I (primary) fermented with S04 to get it to 1.015 ... I then transferred to a plastic pressure barrel with the Brett C (revived in a 600ml starter) and just enough priming sugar (40g) to cause a secondary fermentation to clean up any oxidation caused by the transfer. My records tell me that the PB was then left for 23 weeks, before I released the pressure (and found that the gravity had dropped further only to 1.013) and I then transferred it to primed bottles.

I'm not familiar enough with the tastes thrown by the different Brett strains, and how Brett B would be different to Brett C, but I was pleased with how this experiment turned out for me ... I did put some of it in bottles (without Brett) when putting the rest in the PB and when comparing the Porter with the Brett had a funky appley/cider taste to it, up-front, but then the Brett seemed to add to the depth and complexity of the roasty flavours, really emphasising the chocolate/coffee flavours in it.

I'd say definitely not a No-No for a stout ... actually, weren't some of the earliest examples of Brett found (by the Carslberg scientists) in samples of Guinness?

Cheers, PhilB

 

[Sadfield]

I've put brett C in a few stouts and porters, it works really well and is possibly more historically appropriate in British Styles*. Can't imagine Bruxellensis would do too much harm, it tastes pretty good in Orval. Trying to rack my brain if any of the commercial bretted stouts i've had have been specifically Brett B.

*PhilB "I'd say definitely not a No-No for a stout ... actually, weren't some of the earliest examples of Brett found (by the Carslberg scientists) in samples of Guinne's? " Yes, the C in brett C is for Claussenni after Hjelte Claussen, who was first to publish about it, whilst working for Carlsberg.

EDIT: Doing some digging, Guinness had already discovered it themselves. Carlsberg were searching for the secret to that 'English' taste in stock beers, so probably not from Guinness.

 

[MyQul]

I've put brett C in a few stouts and porters, it works really well and is possibly more historically appropriate in British Styles*. Can't imagine Bruxellensis would do too much harm, it tastes pretty good in Orval. Trying to rack my brain if any of the commercial bretted stouts i've had have been specifically Brett B.

*PhilB "I'd say definitely not a No-No for a stout ... actually, weren't some of the earliest examples of Brett found (by the Carslberg scientists) in samples of Guinne's? " Yes, the C in brett C is for Claussenni after Hjelte Claussen, who was first to publish about it, whilst working for Carlsberg.

Iirc from my stout and porter book brett would be historically correct and I think come from the barrel that it was kept in

 

[strange-steve]

I've never used brett C, am I right in saying it's less funky, more fruity than B?

 

[Sadfield]

I've never used brett C, am I right in saying it's less funky, more fruity than B?

Yes. Often quoted as Pineapple like.

 

[Sadfield]

http://breweryhistory.com/journal/archive/149/Yeast.pdf
This is interesting reading. Lots of brewers arguing and having a pop at each other, right up my street. A long drawn out process in those days, without the internet.

 

[Pennine]

you could always try this

https://boakandbailey.com/2015/01/proporval/

 

[Sadfield]

you could always try this

https://boakandbailey.com/2015/01/proporval/

The interesting thing about that, is that the base recipe of Orval is very British in design anyway. Infusion mash, caramel malts, and golding hops, dry-hopping, low (for Belgium) abv.

https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2020/4/27/making-of-a-classic-orval
There's also chat in one of the comments section of one of Pattro's blogs where it's discussed that Orval is probably the closet commercially available thing to a brett conditioned historic IPA.

 

[Pennine]

The interesting thing about that, is that the base recipe of Orval is very British in design anyway. Infusion mash, caramel malts, and golding hops, dry-hopping, low (for Belgium) abv.

https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2020/4/27/making-of-a-classic-orval
There's also chat in one of the comments section of one of Pattro's blogs where it's discussed that Orval is probably the closet commercially available thing to a brett conditioned historic IPA.

thats very interesting, i have never thought about it being an ipa before but can definitely see that.

i did really enjoy that article as well.

 

[strange-steve]

Thanks for the replies and the links, will have a read through them later

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I'm not familiar enough with the tastes thrown by the different Brett strains, and how Brett B would be different to Brett C

Brett-B is the classic "horse blanket" full-on Brett typical in Belgium, whereas Brett-C is far more subtle and was the one historically associated with British stock ales.

Phil was kind enough to share his beer with some of us over on the BrewUK forum so you might want to read some of the reviews there (was it really 2 years ago?!). Brett-C definitely dried out the beer with a bit of woodiness and for me just a hint of the pineapple thing, but also some fatness in the finish which presumably came from glycerol. It was nice, but I actually preferred the un-Bretted version (partly because I just love that kind of thing as a style and I don't like too much dry woodiness), unfortunately I finished one before realising that the ideal would have been around 2:1 blend of fresh:Brett-C. Which strangely enough is roughly what they used to do in Britain and still do with some beers in Belgium - you benefit from the complexity of the Bretting but also the freshness of the new beer to balance the dryness.

Can't recall having had a Brett-B stout, but I suspect it wouldn't be particularly my thing.

Here's Mike Tonsmeire drinking a 7yo bottle of his Brett-C old ale, you might want to work through some of his other Brett articles, particularly his Brett-C version of Courage RIS.

 

[phildo79]

Hillstown Brewery did this, although not deliberately. It was utterly vile. I have tried a proper brett stout in the past and was not impressed. But then brett beers aren't really my thing.

 

[strange-steve]

Hillstown Brewery did this, although not deliberately.

That sounds about right, I had a bottle of their steaming stag lager and it had a definite lacto infection, it was as sour as their Berliner

 

[phildo79]

That sounds about right, I had a bottle of their steaming stag lager and it had a definite lacto infection, it was as sour as their Berliner

I will never buy their stuff again. Had one of their IPA's in a bar one night and nearly threw up. Massive infection. Then again with their horny bull stout a few months ago. I emailed them to tell them they could have an issue and they never even bothered replying.

 

[strange-steve]

After reading through some of the comments and links I'm having second thoughts, and I wasn't entirely sure about it to start with. I think the idea of blending is a good one, I might grab a bottle of stout next time I'm out and add some of my brett pale into it to give me an idea of the flavours, but pretty much everything I can find on brett stout seems to be with brett C.

On the other hand I'm also considering adjusting the recipe a bit, swap the roasted barley for carafa special, add a load of dark candy syrup, and ferment with WLP530 for something like a lightly roasty quadrupel, and add the brett to that. It's been a while since I brewed a quad and I have all the ingredients...

 

[strange-steve]

I will never buy their stuff again. Had one of their IPA's in a bar one night and nearly threw up. Massive infection. Then again with their horny bull stout a few months ago. I emailed them to tell them they could have an issue and they never even bothered replying.

They definitely need to have a look at their quality control, the beers are very much hit and miss. They made a great blueberry sour which I've only seen on tap in Bittles in Belfast, but most of the other beers have been average at best, and pretty awful at worst.

 

[phildo79]

They definitely need to have a look at their quality control, the beers are very much hit and miss. They made a great blueberry sour which I've only seen on tap in Bittles in Belfast, but most of the other beers have been average at best, and pretty awful at worst.

Once is bad, twice is unforgivable. They should have bucked their ideas up after the first time.

If you want to try a sour stout, get yourself a bottle of treacle stout by PokerTree brewery. It will almost certainly be infected. I think their idea of cleaning the tanks is with a quick spray of Cillit Bang.

 

[strange-steve]

If you want to try a sour stout, get yourself a bottle of treacle stout by PokerTree brewery. It will almost certainly be infected. I think their idea of cleaning the tanks is with a quick spray of Cillit Bang.

I had one of their beers a couple of years ago and it wasn't infected but it was really bland and I haven't tried one since. Actually the state of breweries in NI is pretty poor in general I think.

 

[phildo79]

I had one of their beers a couple of years ago and it wasn't infected but it was really bland and I haven't tried one since. Actually the state of breweries in NI is pretty poor in general I think.

Yeah, it's a bit sh!t. Too many generic beers. They seem more interested in the fancy artwork on the label than they do about what is inside the bottle.

It's worse down south though. There are a few good ones but the rest are just jumping on the bandwagon bollox. For a country that has been producing beer for centuries, we haven't progressed very much.