Question about "Brewing Beers like those you buy"

[Ceejay]

My Dad's just lent me his copy of this book (it's pretty old). The thing that strikes me about it is that every single ale recipe that I like seems to have a fair amount of sugar, molasses etc added to it. Maybe I'm missing the point, but I thought the whole point of AG brewing was to get away from using sugar etc to bulk out the fermentables and get maximum flavour. :hmm:

Now, is it the case that the recipes are formulated like that in order to get as close to the actual product? If so, and I wanted to brew one of these recipes, would it work just to replace the sugar etc with a quantity of pale malt, whilst still producing a faithful (albeit tastier) clone?

Good to see it has "Palmers" beer in there. Bloody love that stuff! :thumb:

 

[doyley]

I take it that it is the Dave Line book you mean. If so, yes, there are a lot of recipes which include sugar, molasses etc, but then a lot of commercial breweries include sugar in one form or another in the brews, and providing it isn't overdone there is nothing wrong with this. Using small amounts of dark sugar can be a useful tool for home brewers due to the subtle flavour it imparts.

It is a good while since I brewed any of his recipes but I seem to remember the finished product did usually resemble the commercial product. There is no reason why you shouldn't use all grain instead, although it might not taste quite the same it will probably be a better beer.

Ingredients, particularly hops, have improved since the book was written, and I seem to remember that it has been recommended that the amount of hops used should be reduced by about 20%. Also his extraction rates seem to be rather optimistic and it was said that increasing the grain bill by 20% would lead to a better result.

I had my first pint of Palmers last year on holiday in Devon, I have to agree it is a lovely beer :

 

[dennisking]

Like Doyley brewed these recipes a lot in the past and really enjoyed them. Can`t add much to what he said but remember sugar is 100% fermentable and pale malt is less, not sure of exact amount.