Begin Brewing!

Although I liked my first two Scottish 80 Shilling Ales, judges in the competitions I entered them into decidedly did not. The second actually scored worse on average than the first, despite the fact that it incorporated feedback from the judges of the first recipe. This time around, I decided to build my own recipe after having a look at the BJCP criteria for the style and the ingredients it recommends. Ingredients 4.5 pounds Maris Otter Malt 4 ounces British Crystal Malt (60-70L) 2 ounces Caramel Light (8L) Malt 2 ounces Melanoidin Malt 4 ounces Flaked Corn 2 ounces Special B Malt 1 ounce Roasted Barley 0.35 ounces Horizon hops pellets @ 8.2% AA (60 min.) 0.25 ounces Bramling Cross hops pellets @ 6.5% AA (10 min.) 1/4 tsp. Yeast Nutrient at 15 min. 1/4 tsp. Brewtan B in the Mash 1/4 tsp. Brewtan B in at 15 min. 1/2 tsp. Irish Moss at 10 min. 1 packet White Labs WLP028 Edinburgh Scottish Ale Yeast 1/2 vial White Labs Clarity Ferm 3 gallons, 16 ounces filtered tap

My first attempt to clone Coniston's Old Man Ale was sort of a flop. Instead of producing a reddish brown English style brown ale, it produced a deep black ale reminiscent of an export stout. I don't know if this is because the homebrew shop didn't measure the specialty malts correctly, or because I ordered the amounts incorrectly, or what, but it bore no resemblance to the beer I was trying to brew. On the other hand, it was actually quite a tasty beer and I view it as a happy-but-unrepeatable mistake. I ordered a new set of ingredients this time, and the resulting beer was indeed a reddish-brown color as it came out of the Zymatic. This leads me to believe the original set of ingredients from the homebrew shop contained a bit too much roasted barley. Ingredients 3.75 pounds Maris Otter Malt 1 ounce UK Roasted Barley Malt 12 ounces Crystal 80L Malt 0.25 ounces Challenger hops @ 6.8% AA (60 min.) 0,20 ounces Mt. Hood hops @ 5.6% AA (15 min.) 0.15 ounces Challen

I ran across a recipe online for Raging Red Irish Red Ale and it seemed that people who had made it really enjoyed it. I've wanted to brew an Irish Red Ale for a while, so I ordered the ingredients. After they arrived, I realized I had mis-read the honey in the ingredient list as Gambrinus Honey Malt, so my version will be a little different from the original. I'm also swapping the California Ale yeast for Danstar Nottingham Ale yeast, which has a similar attenuation and might be slightly more authentic. I also decided to use some Brewtan B in this recipe since I had it on-hand and wanted to see how it might help this beer's flavor hold up over time. Ingredients 4 pounds Two-row Pale Ale Malt 8 ounces Caraaroma Malt 8 ounces Gambrinus Honey Malt 4 ounces Carafoam Malt 4 ounces Melanoidin Malt 1/4 tsp. Brewtan B in the mash 0.5 ounces Crystal hops pellets @ 3.5% AA (60 min.) 0.5 ounces Cascade hops pellets @ 6.9% AA (30 min.) 1/2 tsp. Brewtan B (15 min.)

My first attempt at cloning Georgetown Brewing's Manny's Pale Ale was a dismal failure. It was a drinkable beer, but not pale in color and nothing like a pale ale in flavor. The second version was more like a pale ale in flavor, but still a touch dark in its color. The family member who loves the real beer says this version is too "malty" (which I'm interpreting as the beer having too much Caramel malt or too dark of a Caramel malt). In this version, I'm switching from Caramel 60L to Caramel 40L and decreasing the proportion of the Caramel malt in the recipe. Ingredients 2 pounds 2-row Pale Ale Malt 2 pounds 13 ounces 2-row Brewer's Malt 5 ounces Crystal 40L Malt 0.25 ounces of Summit hops pellets @ 17.5% AA (30 min.) 0.35 ounces of Cascade hops pellets @ 6.9% AA (20 min.) 0.45 ounces of Cascade hops pellets @ 6.9% AA (10 min.) 0.45 ounces of Cascade hops pellets @ 6.9% AA (5 min.) 1/4 tsp. Yeast Nutrient 1/2 tsp. Irish Moss 1 packet Wyeast 1

The last Cream Ale I made was an experiment to see if a drinkable cream ale could be produced with a three-hour Zymatic brewing session. The result was a drinkable but slightly hazy, slightly tart beer. While not the equal of the original 1.0 version of the recipe, it was actually a great warm weather beer. This time around, I am going back to the original recipe, with only a slight change to the grain bill to get a little better head retention. I'm adding some cara-pils malt for that. Ingredients 2 pounds 2-row Pale Malt 1 pound, 13 ounces 6-row Pale Malt 3 ounces Cara-pils/Dextrine Malt 0.50 ounces Hallertau Mittelfruh hops @ 3.8% AA (60 min.) 0.55 ounces Hallertay Mittelfruh hops @ 3.8% AA (5 min.) 1/2 tsp. Irish Moss 1 packet Safale US-05 ale yeast 1/2 vial White Labs Clarity Ferm 3 gallons plus 12 ounces of starting water in keg Mash schedule: 20 minutes Dough-In at 102F 45 minutes Mash Step 1 at 149F 45 minutes Mash Step 2 at 154F 10 minutes Mash Out at 17