English Barleywine IX

This beer will be my ninth attempt at the English Barleywine Style.  I have brewed on every Memorial day since 2014 back in Arizona.  English Barleywine is a style you don't see commercially very often which is a real shame.  It is a very boldly flavored and complex strong beer.  In brewing nine of them I've found found that there's a lot of room for experimentation with the style.  Read about my previous beers here:  2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

I have used quite a few different recipes for the style.  This year I've decided to remake the beer from last year: 1954 Tennant's Gold Label from the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins Blog.  This is kind of an unusual beer in that it uses 5 lbs of flaked corn (23% of the grainbill), invert syrup, and no caramel malt.  Last years beer turned out very good but I was inspired to rebrew based on the observation on the blog that the beer would likely have undergone a secondary fermentation with Brett.  All my previous Barleywine have been clean beers but for this one I am going to use a traditional British Brettanomyces strain:  Brett Anomalus (WLP 640 which I felt very lucky to get from the Yeast Vault in time for this beer).  This is supposed a Brett that imparts a subtle fruity and maybe leathery character to aged English beers.  I'm excited to see what it does.

Other than that I'll be making the beer in basically the same way I did last year with the one exception being that I'll use Wyeast Whitbread yeast (1099) rather than S04 like last year.  These are thought be very closely related yeast strains but are reported to have slightly different flavor profiles.  The recipe called for the 1099.  This might be a moot point since I'm adding Brett anyway but still fun to try different things.

Anyway, I'm very excited to be making another one of these beers (especially after my recent vertical tasting where the fruits of my labor could be enjoyed).  Cheers!

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 17 lbs Maris Otter
• 5 lbs Flaked Corn
• 2.5 lbs Invert #1
• 1 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 3 oz Willamette (Leaf, 5.5% AA) at 120 min
• 1 oz EKG (Pellet, 5.9% AA) at 90 min
• 1 oz EKG (Pellet, 5.9% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz EKG (Pellet, 5.9% AA) at 30 min
• 1 oz EKG (Pellet, 5.9% AA) at 15 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1099 - Whitbread Ale Yeast
• WLP 640 - Brett Anomalus (Secondary)
• Water:
• 15 gal of spring water
• 2 tsp CaCl
• 2 tsp Gypsum
• 2 tsp Citric Acid
• 1 tsp Irish Moss
• Extras:
• 4 sticks of red wine soaked oak

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 149 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 180 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 70 F (Ambient Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• 1 Month
• Secondary Duration:
• 5 months

Results:

• OG:
• 1.110 (Target 1.109)
• Efficiency:
• 70% (Target 68%)
• FG:
• 1.020 (Target 1.024)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 80% (Target 76%)
• ABV:
• 12% (Target 11.3%)

Brewing Notes:

• 5/28/22 - Made a yeast starter using 100 g of DME and 1 L of water.  My yeast expired back in November so this will be a test to see if it will do the job.  Set it up on the stir plate to propagate
• 5/29/22 - The yeast isn't really showing any life to speak of.  Tasted some of the wort and it's still fairly sweet.  Topped it up with some more wort and letting it propagate until tomorrow.

• 5/30/22 - Brewday - 8:45 AM to 2:45 PM - Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 9 gal of spring water up to 180 F
• Milled my grain.  Added 1 tsp of CaCl and 1 tsp of gypsum into the grain.  Added the other half of the salts to the brew kettle so I don't forget

• Moved 7 gal of water to the mash tun.  Cycled this through the RIMS and grant system until the temperature settled out to 165 F
• Stirred the grain into the mash tun making sure there were no dough balls.  Let this sit for 10 min
• Cycled the RIMS for 50 minutes at 149 F
• Heated 9 gal of spring water up to 185 F for the sparge
• Cooked up 2 lbs of invert #1 syrup
• Did a modified fly sparge until I'd collected about 6 gal.  I had started heating the kettle after collecting about 3 gal.  Had it up to a boil after a few more minutes.  Let the mash sit for 15 min to try to extract some more sugar.
• Did a second and third sparge until about 10 gal had been collected
• Continued to boil.  Had to adjust the heat level quite a bit to prevent boil over.  Shooting for a 3 hr boil.
• With 2 hrs left I added the bittering hops

• Added the 90 min hops
• Added the 30 min hops and the Invert #1

• At 15 min I added the last hops and Irish Moss
• Added the wort chiller at 5 min to sanitize
• Chilled down to about 75 F
• Transferred to the fermenter.  Let the wort fall a couple feet to aerate.  Pitched the yeast starter during the transfer.

• Measured the gravity as 1.118 (this is 27.2% sugar).  Collected 5.75 gal.  I'm going to water it down by 0.25 gal which makes the beer 1.110 (26.1% sugar)
• Set the beer up with the lid on loose at basement temperatures.  I didn't get a great sense that the starter was healthy.  I'll give this beer a couple days to get started and, if no signs of life are seen, I'll pitch my emergency packet of S04.
• 6/1/22 - I'm starting to see some signs of fermentation.  I'm not going to add the S04 today.  We'll see if signs of fermentation activity have increased by tomorrow and reconsider.

• 6/2/22 - Have a good amount of krausen formed on the beer this afternoon which is giving me confidence the beer will ferment out as expected.  I'm not going to pitch the S04

• 6/19/22 - Prepared a yeast starter for the Brett several days ago.  It is showing a good amount of activity.  I will add this to the beer when it is transferred to secondary next week

• 6/26/22 - Transferred the beer to a glass carboy for bulk aging.  Measured the gravity as 1.030 at this point.  Added oak to the beer at this point and also added the brett starter.  I'll let this age for 6 months or so.
• The beer has a pretty strong fruit ester character along with bready and caramel malt character along with noticeable alcohol presence - also has a good bit of hop character in the mix and is firmly bitter
• The Brett A yeast is very interesting.  Historical reports were that it provides a Pineapple-like character.  I'd say that's pretty accurate for the ester character it brings.  It tastes somewhat like the Brett Clausenii I had used previously but I think is more fruit forward and more intense in flavor.  I am excited to see how it performs.

• 3/11/23 - Bottling day - This beer has been sitting in a dark corner of the basement for 9 months undisturbed.  I measure the gravity as 1.020 - this is down 10 points from the start of the aging - and has an ABV of 12%.  It is a golden brown in color and very clear.  It has a fruity and oaky aroma and the flavor is a mix of booze, fruity ester, light bready malt, and a fairly firm bitter kick.  Bottled with 5 oz of priming sugar and a rehydrated pack of Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast.  Got 60 bottles.  I'll give these a couple weeks to carbonate before trying the first one
• 4/20/23 - Tasting Notes - This is a rich, boldly flavored, and complex beer.  The fruit character is different than any I've gotten from a traditional English yeast.  The yeast and malt flavors get along very nicely in this beer.  It is a strong beer but it's easy to drink due to the balance provided by the hop bitterness that remains almost a year after brewing
• 5/28/23 - Tasting Notes (2023):
• Tasting Notes (39 of 50):
• Aroma (7 of 12):  Fruity ester character is dominant.  I'd say it's kind of tropical fruit and maybe peach.  I get a bit of caramel in the background.  Maybe a bit of oak in there too.  Some booze as well and maybe some hop character
• Appearance (2 of 3):  Copper color and very clear.  Pours with a 2 finger head that fades down to a thin ring pretty quickly
• Flavor (17 of 20):  Fruity ester character followed by nice caramel malt and lightly toasted bread.  There is an herbal hop flavor in there as well.  The finish has a medium bitterness which is balanced by rich malt flavor with a light sweetness.  A bit of alcohol character to it but it hides it pretty well
• Mouthfeel (5 of 5):  Medium bodied and only a little bit sticky on the palate.  It drinks very smoothly.  Noticeable alcohol warming.
• Overall (8 of 10):  Rich and bold flavors in this beer.  I has a great deal of complexity between yeast, malt, and hop character.  I really like the fairly firm bitterness in this one and the balance it achieves.