Historical English Pale Ale (aka "AK")

I've decided to brew up another historical English Ale from the "Shut up about Barclay Perkins" blog:  the 1896 Eldridge Pope AK.  This is a sort of English Pale Ale which apparently was a bit lighter in alcohol than the standard Pale Ale at the time.  I'm pretty much out of hoppy beer and have had to resort to buying commercial beer.  Will be nice to have my own hoppy beer to drink again.

Like a previous historic beer I brewed, the beer uses corn and Invert Syrup in addition to English Barley.  The invert helps the beer dry out, provides a color contribution, and may leave some slight residual flavor (the invert #2 is very raisin like).

For yeast, I'll be using WLP 099 Super High Gravity which was reportedly the house strain for Eldridge Pope.  I'll ferment for one week on the yeast cake and then move this beer off to make room for my next English Barleywine.

This one has turned out to be a pretty light colored beer.  I'm used to most English Bitters being more of a copper but this is a golden beer.  Fairly light invert #2 and no caramel malts have that effect I guess.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct
• 4.5 lb Maris Otter
• 3.5 lb Golden Promise
• 0.5 lb Flaked Corn
• 1.5 lb Invert #2
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.7% AA) at 60 min
• 1.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.7% AA) at 30 min
• 0.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.7% AA) at 0 min
• Yeast:
• WLP 099 Super High Gravity (Eldridge Pope/Hardy’s yeast)
• Water:
• 12 gal spring water
• 1 oz CaCl
• 1 oz Gypsum
• 1 oz Irish Moss at 15 min

Batch Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5.75 (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 151 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 70 F
• Primary Duration:
• 2 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.051 (Target 1.049)
• Efficiency:
• 70% (Target 70%)
• FG:
• 1.010 (Target 1.013)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 80% (Target 73%)
• ABV:
• 5.38% (Target 4.73%)

Brewing Notes:

• 5/19/19 - Brewday - From 12:00 PM to 3:45 PM
• Made the Invert Syrup #2
• Heated 2 cups water, 1.5 lbs of Demerara Sugar and 1/4 tsp of citric acid on medium low until the sugar had dissolved and the mixture reached 240 F

• Heated 7 gal of spring water up to 185 F
• Milled the grain.  Added CaCl and Gypsum to the grain during milling
• Moved 5 gal of water to the mash tun and cycled through the RIMS until the system had settled to about 161 F
• Stopped the cycle and added the grain.  Stirred well to eliminate doughballs.  The mash temp was down to 154 F after this
• Setup the RIMS to cycle at 151 F at approximately a couple quarts per minute.  Temperature quickly settled down to 151 F.  Cycled for 60 min.
• Heated about 7 gal of spring water up to 185 F
• Drained the mash tun and gradually added more hot water to the top with a measuring cup as a sort of modified fly sparge.  Collected until I had 8 gal
• Started heating the boil kettle after collecting about 4 gal.  Had it to a boil a few minutes after collecting the full volume
• Boiled for 60 min
• Added the bittering hops after the hot break cleared

• Added flavoring hops at 30 min
• Added Irish Moss with 15 min left
• Poured in the invert #2 syrup with about 10 min left.  Rinsed the pot with boiling wort

• Added the wort chiller to sanitize the beer with 5 min left
• Added flame out hops at 0 min
• Chilled the beer down to 70 F
• Transferred the beer into a bucket fermenter.  Let it fall a couple feet into the bucket to aerate.  There was a lot of hop matter at the bottom of the fermenter with the last quart of wort.  Decided to dump all this into the fermenter

• Added yeast (no starter) on transfer
• Collected 5.5 gal and measured the gravity as 1.054.  Topped up with about a quarter of a gal of spring water to bring the gravity down to maybe 1.051
• Moved the fermenter to the chest freezer with a reptile heater.  Set temperature control at 70 F
• 5/20/19 - The airlock was bubbling by the next afternoon
• 5/22/19 - The beer is putting off a pretty off putting smell
• 5/2319 - Bad smell has mostly cleared.  Fermentation looks to be about rapped up
• 6/22/19 - Bottled today with 4 oz of priming sugar.  Got 5 gal which netted me 49 bottles.  Measured the gravity as 1.010.  The beer has a pretty clean flavor and a light bitterness - tastes almost lager like at this point.
• 7/27/19 - Tasting Notes - It's nice to have a bitter beer to drink again (I've ended up buying 2 cases of commercial beer in the last few months due to lack of pale ale).  I've gone through about half the batch since bottling a month ago.  This is a really drinkable beer.  Tough to say how it should have turned out but this English Pale ale is interesting in that it has almost no yeast character (could tell someone it is a lager and they'd believe it) - the Eldridge Pope strain (WLP 099) is not estery at 70 F with a 1.051 beer it turns out.  Regardless, the English Fuggle hops deliver the goods - flavor, aroma, and bitterness are all quite nice.