Early Ale Early Review

An Historic Taste!

The first reviews of the "early ale" experiment are in.  Recall that this was an attempt to brew one of the Durden Park Beer Circle recipes for a pale ale from the early 19th century.  I had been wanting to try one of their recipes for some time and so I did.

I conducted the first tasting after about a week in the bottle.  Harsh is the only word that can describe what it then tasted like.  Very bitter, almost astringent, with a whopper alcohol bite and after taste.  Some might enjoy such a beverage, but it is not for me.  But remember, Dear Reader, that this is a bottle conditioned ale and taste evolution will occur.

At the week two mark, I took a bottle of said ale to the house of some friends. Without mentioning my initial distaste for the product I poured the glasses.  Both of them liked it.  Kristen especially liked the fact that it was sweeter and less bitter than most pale ales.  She felt it was, overall, smoother than a typical pale ale.

That was interesting!  Was this the same beer that had violently assaulted my taste buds barely a week before? I took a drink myself. What a surprise: The flavor had smoothed out marvelously and the alcohol bite was nearly gone.  The harsh astringency had been replaced by a strong maltiness with a background of fruity hoppiness.  It was the type of taste evolution that would make Darwin proud.

The question that remains is this:  Does my latest effort really taste like a beer from the early 19th century?  That is a tough question to answer.  So many things have changed in terms of materials and supplies that any attempt to reconstruct an early recipe is an exercise in speculation.  The fellows and ladies of the Durden Park Beer Circle are are well aware of that and take great pains to research the processes and materials contemporary with the beer they are trying to recreate and account for those differences when they create their recipes.  So while we cannot know if we have matched the taste exactly, we are at least pretty close to what the original beer tasted like.

Nothing quite like a history lesson in a glass.  Cheers!

Early Ale

I have chosen to call my latest effort and "early ale."  I did this because the term "old ale" has, for better or worse become a "style" and I did not want to confuse my readers and have them thinking that I brewed something I had not.

So, what is this "early ale?"  It is something have wanted to try for some time. I adapted this recipe from the published recipes of the Durden Park Beer Circle, whose mission it is to recreate as closely as possible the recipes of the early British ales.  Readers may remember that I reviewed their book of history and recipes in a previous post. Each recipe, formulated using archived notes and descriptions, is and attempt to recreate an actual beer that was brewed long ago. Long I have wanted to brew one of their recipes, but for various reasons had not.

Two things I like about the Durden Park recipes is they are all historical and simple. Brewing their recipes is like using a beer time machine, and one need not muck-about with protease rests and octuple decoctions.  This is brewing at its raw best, when brewers brewed based on their experience, not on what they were told; each recipe being the distillation of centuries of experience.

The basis for this latest brew was a pale ale recipe from the 1820's.  A very basic recipe, it called only for the use of pale malt and hops; one malt and one hop.  I modified it slightly by adding some sugar to the boil in an effort to ensure a nice dry finish.

So how did things work out?  I cannot say for sure, but I bottled today and the early result is encouraging. The raw beer has a good hop flavor and aroma with a strong malt base and a dry finish.  I can't wait to pop open a bottle in a few weeks. Ah yes, the wait.

Discourse on Method

When the idea of this brewery first began to take shape, we realized that we needed to simplify things if we were to have any success. The latest technology is nice, but we could not afford that. Even if we could, it would likely not be consistent with our ideal, our mission.

To that end, I have been experimenting with ways to reduce the brewing process to its essential elements. Regarding equipment, all that is needed is heat and containers. Perhaps a bit of tubing for fluid transfer would be a help. In the work-flow of most breweries, each step of the brewing process requires its own container. Given our situation, we need to keep the number of containers to a minimum.

The method I devised involved eliminating the secondary fermenter and the container for priming (bottling bucket). In the process I have previously used, the beer moves from the boiler to the primary fermenter to the secondary fermenter to the bottling bucket for priming then it gets bottled. In this new method the beer will move from the boiler to the primary fermenter then get bottled, thus cutting the number of containers in half. This is akin to brewing processes of the middle 19th century.

Using only single stage fermentation is not that uncommon a practice, especially among home brewers. I myself have only recently started using two-stage fermentation. Two-stage fermentation may yield a cleaner (less cloudy) beer and less sediment in the bottles, but does increase the risk of infection due to increased handling. Furthermore, beer properly conditioned in the bottle can be as clear as anything. The main reason I used two-stage fermentation was to reduce the amount of beer lost during the blow-off phase. I used to be a big believer in the blow-off phase, but that is the subject for another article.

As to eliminating the priming bucket, that was a bit trickier. Accomplishing that would mean I would have to prime the beer while it was still in the fermenter. I would need to mix the priming solution thoroughly enough to ensure uniform carbonation across the entire batch. I would also need to minimize agitation of the sediment. The two goals seemed mutually exclusive.

I finally decided to rely on some good old high school chemistry. To wit: If two solutions (in this case raw beer and the primer) are miscible (can dissolve completely each into the other) they will diffuse into each other and eventually form a uniform solution simply due to the kinetic energy of the constituent molecules. No mixing needed.

The final process involved two steps. First, the primer was poured slowly into the fermenter while the fermenter was very gently agitated to give the diffusion process a jump-start. The second step was to wait about 7.5 hours to allow the process of diffusion to complete its work. The beer was then bottled.

So how does this new streamlined method work? I have now used this on two batches of English bitter, with excellent results in both cases. Both times the final product had good carbonation and hop character with a crisp finish and no off-flavors. One reviewer, who is quite knowledgeable in things beery, asked how I managed to get such good hop aroma and still have such a clean, dry finish.

Ah, success.