Festival old Suffolk strong Ale.

[Beerlover]

Started this last Monday with a Sg of 1054 and by Friday it had slowed right down on the bubbling front and dropped to 1010 so I added the hops, it was still on 1010 today (3 days later) so I was going to transfer it to a PB but at the last minute decided to throw a few Citra hops in for the hell of it, will probably transfer it tomorrow, it seems to have dropped to be a lot quicker than the other festival kits I've done which have all been in the FV for 2 weeks.

 

[markb11]

Just brewed this yesterday sg 1060. Cant wait

 

[ajt24]

Ive not long bottled and kegged this one after it was primed i took out a sample bottle 19/6/16 and tried very heavy with a earthy bitter after taste (wife said no not at all and I wasnt keen) however I had 8 litres in my PB and took a sample 21/6/16 and how it tasted different it was mellower and the wife said she would have a pint of that, not as bitter at all. I know it was young when I sampled but out look is good. I would add the hops a few more days after it says as it took longer to ferment out and if you dont like it to bitter then dont add all the hops. I think this is like my mates mum only gets better with age :grin:

 

[RichK]

Just two weeks from bottling & temptation has got the better of me. Brewed as per instructions. Result is full of flavour. OG 1050 to FG of 1010 suggests a lower abv than on the box. It certainly tastes strong enough for my liking. I will definitely be doing this one again.

 

[Trevor Clacher]

Put this on yesterday. Brewed short to 21l and got an OG of 1.060.
24 hours later and the airlock is bubbling away nicely.
Thinking of only adding half the hops after the first 5 days are up as I'm not took keen on overly hopped beer.

 

[Trevor Clacher]

Ended up adding all the hops and following the instructions. The fermentation didn't quite make the final FG of 1.014 and i got down to 1.016 making an abv of 5.78% rather than the expected 6.5% although I'm not complaining. Upon bottling it had a pleasant, deep taste so I'm expecting that it will turn into a decent drop after conditioning.

 

[Trevor Clacher]

After only 2 weeks conditioning in the bottle this is a lovely beer. Absolutely astounded how nice it is at this early stage and I would happily pay for a pint of this at my local

 

[Trevor Clacher]

After another few weeks it's got even better. This is a lovely beer.
I'm going to put some of these away for Xmas.

 

[StFlipper]

As an experiment the last time I made this kit I swapped the kit yeast for a high attenuation saison (Mangrove Jack's French Saison) to see what sort of final gravity it would reach. As you say the kit yeast seems to give up at about 1.014-1.016, making the ABV well under the quoted 6.5%, and to my mind a bit on the sweet side. With the saison it got down to 1.004, which is around 6.7%, so even higher than Ritchies intended.
The downside was that by fermenting out so much of the malt it lost that nice depth of body, but after a month in the bottle it could easily have passed for a dark Belgian farmhouse beer.