Erik The Anglophile
Regular.
Got an old timey(late 1800's-early 1900's) inspired stock ale I intend to brew sometime in the coming months:
The Maris Otter is actually GP, and the vienna a mild malt sub, plan to ferment it as usual with my Verdant/MJ Liberty Bell mix, then rack to a secondary with some boiled medium toast french oak cubes, add the Bobek dry hops and Brett C and let it go through a secondary fermentation. I will likely cut back the amount of Bobek a little bit, the goal is 1g/L in the secondary. The oak will be dosed at a little under that, and boiled so the oak flavour is as subtle as possible, I assume that even though the brewers back then did their best to have the oak barrels not impart flavour, some must have been soaked up in the finished beer, evidently by the fact they avoided american oak for vatting casks as the flavour was found to be unpleasant.
Aged for at least 5 months or until there seems to be no more Brett activity, gravity check with 3-4 weeks between them to ensure stable FG and then bottling to condition and cellaring for a few months.
Wondering about what water to target for this? I have been looking at the Graham Wheeler profiles I have based most my water on, and think either his sweet pale ale or mild profile should work best, ie a mineral rich but either slightly cl forward or slightly So4 forward profile. I usually use a slightly tweaked mild profile for my browns and milds, but as I understand it these beers were kinda dry, what do you think?
The Maris Otter is actually GP, and the vienna a mild malt sub, plan to ferment it as usual with my Verdant/MJ Liberty Bell mix, then rack to a secondary with some boiled medium toast french oak cubes, add the Bobek dry hops and Brett C and let it go through a secondary fermentation. I will likely cut back the amount of Bobek a little bit, the goal is 1g/L in the secondary. The oak will be dosed at a little under that, and boiled so the oak flavour is as subtle as possible, I assume that even though the brewers back then did their best to have the oak barrels not impart flavour, some must have been soaked up in the finished beer, evidently by the fact they avoided american oak for vatting casks as the flavour was found to be unpleasant.
Aged for at least 5 months or until there seems to be no more Brett activity, gravity check with 3-4 weeks between them to ensure stable FG and then bottling to condition and cellaring for a few months.
Wondering about what water to target for this? I have been looking at the Graham Wheeler profiles I have based most my water on, and think either his sweet pale ale or mild profile should work best, ie a mineral rich but either slightly cl forward or slightly So4 forward profile. I usually use a slightly tweaked mild profile for my browns and milds, but as I understand it these beers were kinda dry, what do you think?