Biscuit Brown

[Martin Kernick]

I recently had the good fortune to drink in The Bridge, a Kirkstall Brewery pub in Kirkstall, Leeds, and was lucky enough to try their brown ale 'Biscuit Brown'. Very nice. I wanted to try to emulate it, or at least give a nod to it by brewing a brown ale of my own with that biscuity flavour, so I went on their website and read the following:

"Using Brown Malt, Amber Malt and oats that have been baked (in the taproom pizza oven!) to release their biscuity flavour, this absolutely Autumnal Brown Ale features richly-layered flavours of malt with a dry, clean and distinctly biscuity finish."

I googled "toasting oats for beer" and it seems that bewers are toasting oats @ 150C, in a domestic oven on a greaseproof lined tray until golden (about 35-45mins with a few stirs).

Now I reckon I can produce my toasted oats, and I can get hold of both brown malt and amber malt, but I'm unfamilliar about brewing with any of these ingredients.

Here's my first stab at what is, for me, an experimental recipe.

3.75kg Maris Otter Ale Malt
700g Toasted Oats
400g Amber Malt
400g Brown Malt

Hopped to about 22 IBU with something mainly for bitterness, possibly EKG.

Whaddya think. Have any of you used these ingredients? Any advice apreciated especially if you've done anything remotely like ths before.

 

[Clint]

Email the Brewery..

 

[Martin Kernick]

Email the Brewery..

Worth a try I guess.
.
.
Done! There's a first time for everything.
I'll let you know what answer I get.

 

[Pennine]

Amber and brown malt give me a lot of burnt toast flavour. 8% of each might be a bit too much. I would probably go closer to 200g for each including the toasted oats. Although I am not sure that will get you the colour you want. How dark was it?

It would be cool to see if they email you back though.

 

[clib]

I'm with Pennine. Certainly too much brown malt.

 

[Martin Kernick]

How dark was it?

See here: Biscuit Brown | Beer

 

[The Baron]

Just add some Black Patent malt to the mash late on for extra colour add not so much astringency or do a steep with the black and add to the wort

 

[clib]

 

[Martin Kernick]

To be clear, Kirkstall seem to brew two beers. Biscuit Brown (4.5%) and Extra Biscuit Brown (5.5%). The one I had was the 4.5% version.

 

[Pennine]

That's not too dark at all, sounds like a great beer. Was it fruity at all from the yeast or was it clean?

 

[Pennine]

View attachment 84608

Untappd seems like an utterly useless website... Pint pics with zero useful information.

 

[clib]

Untappd seems like an utterly useless website... Pint pics with zero useful information.

I quite like it.

 

[Martin Kernick]

That's not too dark at all, sounds like a great beer. Was it fruity at all from the yeast or was it clean?

I don't remember fruitiness much. Predominantly you could taste the lightly roasted/toasted grains which is where the biscuityness comes from, a little sweetness in there, but also more bitter than your average northern brown ale.

 

[Pennine]

Sounds like it may have some light or medium caramel malt in there. Nottingham or some other neutral yeast then maybe even us05. It does say goldings for hops so that is easy.

 

[An Ankoù]

It's part of their "revival" series, so they're copying or interpreting something. The recipe may already be out there.
Here's a possible starting point.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/670380/english-biscuit-aleSubstitute the continental malts for amber and brown or keep on looking for something closer.
Naked golden oats might be useful, too, although I think they're malted and kilned like a crystal malt.

 

[clib]

Kirkstall's house yeast is WLP001, though they do use other yeasts for some brews. They did an all English Abbey ale with West Yorkshire yeast, as one of their revival beers. But they'd likely mention it if they used a different yeast. I think they'd probably mention all the specialty malts too. Why say brown, amber and oats but not crystal, if they used crystal? I could be wrong.

If they dont reply with info I'd be inclined to stick to what we know. Pale, brown, amber, oats, Goldings, WLP001. Grain percentages, not sure. As a revival beer they may have used more brown and amber than we generally do nowadays.

 

[Martin Kernick]

Sounds like it may have some light or medium caramel malt in there. Nottingham or some other neutral yeast then maybe even us05. It does say goldings for hops so that is easy.

Yes, I was going to use Nottingham or Lallemand's London yeast for a little more sweetness.

 

[Martin Kernick]

Kirkstall's house yeast is WLP001, though they do use other yeasts for some brews. They did an all English Abbey ale with West Yorkshire yeast, as one of their revival beers. But they'd likely mention it if they used a different yeast. I think they'd probably mention all the specialty malts too. Why say brown, amber and oats but not crystal, if they used crystal? I could be wrong.

If they dont reply with info I'd be inclined to stick to what we know. Pale, brown, amber, oats, Goldings, WLP001. Grain percentages, not sure. As a revival beer they may have used more brown and amber than we generally do nowadays.

Excellent work. I will use WLP001. I'm inclined to agree that they would say if they were using crystal. The thing is that this beer caught my attention because it tasted a little bit out of the ordinary and that would fit with the ingredients we know they used. If they'd used much crystal at all I think it would have brought it back on piste.

 

[clib]

Excellent work. I will use WLP001. I'm inclined to agree that they would say if they were using crystal. The thing is that this beer caught my attention because it tasted a little bit out of the ordinary and that would fit with the ingredients we know they used. If they'd used much crystal at all I think it would have brought it back on piste.

I think you may get some info from them. They seem good sorts. Good luck. And let us know if you do get info. I like the sound of it. I like a brown ale with plenty of bitterness and a decent amount of late hops. I like brown malt. I've been using Verdant yeast in my brown ales and porters with very good effect. That would be a good dry option.

 

[Jim Brewster]

Sounds a good beer. Possibly some Munich in the grain bill could work well too, depending on if it had a crisp finish or if it was a bit richer. Amber needs very little to have a big impact. I used 10% brown malt in a fruit porter last year and that was really nice.