Timothy Taylor's Landlord Clone

This week I've brewed up an attempted clone of a well regarded English Pale Ale:  Timothy Taylor's Landlord Bitter.  I've never actually had an opportunity to try the original but I very much like English Pale ale and it's been quite a while since I made one.  I figure it would be tough to go wrong with making an attempt at this one.  The brewery has posted a very nice tour video with quite a bit of useful information on the process: see that here.  I've also based my recipe on one created by famous homebrewer Gordon Strong.

This is a beer reported to be made using only one grain:  Simpson's Gold Promise.  I picked up a 55lb sack of this for use in this recipe (will have a lot left over which is just fine by me).  The beer is about 4.3% ABV and should come in at around 1.010.  

The beer is an amber color which is a bit darker than you could expect from just pale malt.  Many of the clone recipes add a couple ounces of roasted malt to get the desired color.  I decided to try making a bit of brewers caramel, which is a fairly traditional ingredient in English Brewing used to provide color but not much in the way of flavor or fermentable sugar.  I did this by making a very dark dry caramel.  I will make 4 oz and add a bit at a time until the color looks about right (should go from about 6 SRM to 9)

The beer is hopped fairly assertively per the video referenced above with generous late hopping.  They use a combination of Fuggle, East Kent Golding, and Styrian Golding in the beer where the Styrian are the star flavoring hop.  My hopping was maybe slightly higher than the reference recipe mostly to use the full ounce of the hops I'd purchased.  Having not had the beer I don't expect I'll care much if the balance is slightly different.  I love English Hops anyway though so I don't expect I'll regret having a bit more.

Finally, the yeast used for this beer is reported to be a strain derived from the Timothy Tailor Brewery.  They do an open fermentation in square fermenters.  The yeast stays on the surface after fermentation has completed so brewery ends up skimming it off the top to discard or to culture for the next batch (top cropping).  They also rouse the yeast early in the process to encourage it to finish.  I'm going to go with an open fermentation for my batch with the lit on loosely with no airlock.  I may try to top crop the yeast.  I'm not got to go through the trouble of rousing.  They start their beer in the low 60s and then cool it through the fermentation process.  I've decided to let it start in the low 60s and then rise naturally sitting at ambient basement temps.

I'm going to keg this beer and plan to give it 4 weeks to finish out.  Really excited to be trying some new things.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 9.75 lbs Simpson's Golden Promise Pale Ale
• 2.6 oz Dark Caramel
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 2 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.4% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz English Golding (Pellet, 4.5% AA) at 10 min
• 1 oz Styrian Golding (Pellet, 3.5% AA) at 0 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale
• Water:
• 12 gal spring water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 152 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temperature (low 60s)
• Primary Duration:
• 4 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.046 (Target 1.043)
• Efficiency:
• 76% (Target 71%)
• FG:
• 1.013 (Target 1.010)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 71% (Target 76%)
• ABV:
• 4.3% (Target 4.3%)

Brewing Notes:

• 12/12/20:
• Built a yeast starter using 100 g of DME and 1 L of water.  Boiled, cooled, pitched the yeast and then set it up on a stir plate to propagate
• Cooked up 4 oz of Dry Caramel.  Put sugar on a pan and cooked it on medium low until it was all dissolved and boiling.  Smokes quite a bit in the process
• 12/13/20 - Brewday - 9:15 AM to 1:15 PM Including Setup (I did a deep cleanup this time which took several hrs)
• Brought 7 gal of spring water to 180 F
• Milled my grain.  Added CaCl and Gypsum to the grain

• Moved 6 gal of water to the mash tun.  Cycled through the grant and RIMS until the temperature had stabilized to 162 F.
• Stopped the RIMS cycle and added in the grain.  Stirred well to eliminate dough balls

• Let the mash settle for 10 min
• Cycled the RIMS at 152 F for 50 min
• Heated 7 gal of spring water to 185 F for the sparge
• Drained the mash tun and fly sparged until I had 4 gal in the kettle
• Added 5 more gal of water to the mash tun and let this sit for a second batch sparge.  Let this sit for 10 min
• Started heating the kettle after collecting 3 gal and had it at a boil prior to the second sparge
• Added the bittering hops once the boil was under way
• Slowly drained the second batch sparge into the kettle.  Slow enough to allow the boil to continue.  Fly sparged until a total of 8 gal has been collected
• Added my brewers caramel by draining boiling wort into the pan which contained the crystalized sugar.  Let this dissolve a little bit at a time and then added back into the kettle.  This took multiple cycles to get enough for color.  The wort seemed dark enough before I'd dissolved it all so I stopped (only ended up adding 2.6 oz)

• With 15 min left in the boil I added the Irish Moss
• Added 10 min hops.  These are pellet so I added them in loose
• With 5 min I added the wort chiller in to sanitize
• Added the 0 min hops

• Chilled the beer slowly to give the hops a bit more time at temps at about 180 F.  Was able to chill down to about 70 F
• Drained the wort to a brew bucket
• Collected 6 gal.  Measured gravity as 1.046 which was just a bit above target of 1.043.
• Pitched the yeast starter
• Left the beer to ferment with the lid on top of the fermenter but unsealed to try to mimic and open fermentation
• 12/13/20 - Krausen has formed

• 12/16/20 - The fermentation is producing a very fruity aroma
• 1/10/21 - Moved the beer to the chest freezer set to 40 F to cold crash
• 1/12/21 - Added gelatin to fine the beer
• 1/15/21 - Kegged the beer today and set it to carbonate at 12 PSI.  Measured the final gravity as 1.013.  So, I overshot my OG by 3 points and it's stopped 3 points higher than intended and I met my ABV target.  I'll give the beer at least a few days before I start drinking it.
• 2/7/21 - Tasting Notes - A really drinkable beer with a lovely balance between malt and hops.  Nice flavors and good amount of complexity.  I would say this is the best English Bitter I've made so far.  I feel compelled to play around with this yeast some more as I suspect that it's playing a significant background roll in flavor profile (I don't believe this beer would taste as good with Chico yeast)
• 3/15/21 - Kicked the keg sadly.  The beer was still delicious up to the last pint