Brew Day: Yarmouth Special Dark Bitter

After a visit to The Blue Anchor in Delray Beach, FL, and a few pints of London Pride, I decided I must have an English pale ale/bitter style beer at home.  This recipe is essentially the Pride formula with the addition of a touch of Thomas Fawcett pale chocolate malt (200L), and a simpler hop bill (excluded Challenger, bumped up EKG's). After much success with Wyeast 1469 - West Yorkshire Ale yeast it is always at the top of my list. The result is a browner, stronger (unintentionally, the wind boosted the evaporation rate),beer that hopefully captures the same spirit as a pint of Pride.

Yarmouth Special Dark Bitter

6 gallons 

70% efficiency (planned)

SG: Pre-boil 1.048 - 7 gallons (1.044 planned)

SG: Post-boil 1.062 (1.054 planned)

IBU: 33 Rager Formula

SRM: 11

Grist

12 lbs Marris Otter Pale Malt

0.5 lbs Simpson's Dark Crystal 70L

  3 oz  Fawcett Pale Chocolate  200L

Mashed with 4.5 gallons of 165F strike water @ 155F. Stepped up to 162F with 1.5 gallons of boiling water.

1.5 tsp of Gypsum to mash

1.5 tsp of CaCl to mash

0.5 tsp of Gypsum to boil

Sparged with 3 gallons of water at 175F.

Hops 

75 mins - 1.0 oz East Kent Goldings - 5.1 % alpha acid 

15 mins - 0.5 oz East Kent Goldings - 5.1 % alpha acid

15 mins - 1.0 oz UK Northdown - 6% alpha acid

Added 0.5 oz of East Kent Goldings  to the whirlpool after wort chilled below 100F to simulate using a hop back. 

Yeast

Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale - 1 smack pack at 50% viability ~50B cells. Pitched at 64

Fermentis US-05 American Ale Yeast - 10 g - or ~150B cells. Pitched at 64 2 hours after liquid yeast.

(rehydrated according to Zainascheff and White's procedures)

Oxygenation - filled headspace with O2 and shook for 1 minute. Two doses.

Notes: Must have ended up with around 5.5 or less gallons post boil. The wind was ripping and increased to evaporation rate. Slightly increased efficiency. Collected 7 gallons of wort at 1.048 pre-boil. 

Brew Day: The Innkeeper

My wife has me make a list of things I want for Christmas. On that list were 3 kits from Northern Brewer: The Inkeeper, Keeler's Reverse Burster Alt Beer, & the socially awkward Patersbier. I never use kits, and I thought it would be awesome for her to pick the style of beer I was brewing. She chose wisely.

The brew day was my shortest yet on my newish system. I was a little scared of only having 6 1/4 lbs of malt in my 10 gallon mash tun, but I got good conversion quick with little heat loss over an hour. Hit all my numbers on point on this one. Very satisfying.

I love Styrian Goldings and West Yorkshire ale yeast so this beer should be perfect for me. Twice Champion Beer of Britain? Maybe not. But I brewed it.

The Inkeeper 

5 gallons

1.043 OG

~ 40 IBU

6.00 lbs Simpson's Golden Promis

0.25 lbs Simpson's Extra Dark Crystal

1.00 lbs Corn Sugar

1 oz Fuggle @ 60 mins

1 oz EKG @ 45 mins

1 oz Styrian Goldings @ 15 mins

Wyeast 1469 - 1250 ml Starter, pitched whole thing @ 64 F into about 4.5 gallons of wort.

Brewed on January 28 in record time. Fast conversion and easy lautering.

Realized I forgot the whirlfloc. Doh!

Yeast took off pretty fast. Nice 2 inch thick Krauesen that sat on top for a solid 2 weeks.

Added some isinglass from the good folks at Northern Brewer in an attempt to clarify this mass of murk. I noticed a huge difference when leaving out the whrilfloc. I was able to squeeze a ton of wort out of the kettle with minimal losses, but the finished beer is going to have a good amount of chill haze.

Bottle on February 16 - Tasting pretty good. Nice and dry. Michael Jackson described Tim Taylor's Landlord and Styrian Goldings as orange marmalade flavors. Thats perfect here. Couldn't have picked a better descriptor for the hop flavor. The malt is juicy and leaves that biscuity toasty hint of toffee lingering after each sip.

I think there is some acetaldehyde. I always seem to get this with the Wyeast 1469. Maybe its just an ester and I'm fermenting to warm. Hopefully it goes away after some bottle conditioning. I'm looking forward seeing how this beer evolves.

Cheers. Tip your Innkeepers.

Update: Placed 3rd in First Round of NHC Atlanta Judging Center! Category 8b.