Let's Brew Wednesday - Starkey, Knight and Ford Bitter of some sort

Starkey, Knight and Ford - dontcha just hate them? The frustrating, lazy bastards.

I can safely say that as they're all surely long dead. Their brewing records drive me nuts. Almost as bad as the Dryborough ones where they magic beers from nowhere. Hang on, exactly as bad as that. Because they were up to the same trick.

This is how it looks. Bear in mind that there's been just one mixed wort in a single fermenter. This is for something called simply "BA" at the start of the record. Somehow at racking time it's turned into four beers:

Now the bottling beer could be the same as one of the others, but the 6d and 7d can't be the same strength, because the prices are different.

Here are some more Bitters/Pale Ales spun from the one brew of 1045º to 1048º:

They did something similar with their Mild, but at least there's the odd entire-gyle brew of that.

As it's impossible to know how these beers were assembled, I suggested to Kristen that he just do a recipe for the base beer. Which probably was one of the six variations above. My money would be on the 7d or 8d.

I'm left with nothing to say about this beer. Other than that it had a typical grist of English and Californian pale malt, flaked maize, No. 2 invert and CWA. Not sure what the latter is - cane West African? Or is it a proprietary sugar? Can't say I know.

And that's it. Really, really irritating. No. really, really, really, really irritating. It's enough to make me fucking swear.


Thanks again to Boak and Bailey for the photo of the brewing record which is the basis of this recipe.




On that cheerful note, I'll pass you over to Kristen . . . . . . . . . . .

Kristen’s Version:

Notes: Going through this log, everything seemed normal until the end. A simple double gyle. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then in the blending notes. They have 4 different beers, in different amounts. No explaination. Not ‘showing your work’. Just the beers and their volumes. I mean, I can guess as to how they were blended but hey, this is the one, the strong one, that is very straight forward. Insasmuch, feel free to drop the gravity, and hops, accordingly to your tastes.

Malt:. The first thing you should notice about this beer is the amount of adjunct. Over 35%!! So you have to know going in that you’ll need a really nice pale malt (or two). Anything you’d like really. I’m going with a nice biscuit Pearl and a standard US two row for a bit of husk that goes nicely in small doses. For the invert, feel free to use whatever you’d like. Its only a bit so if there is a bit of dark sugars you’ve been wanting to try, give it a go. Belgian, American, English, homemade…as long as its dark, it will be good to go.

Hops: Hops are pretty straightforward. Goldings, US, Styrain. I chose to dry hop with Goldings however you could throw away all common sense and add some garbage water (Summit) hops if you’d like. This beer really is more about the hops so for once, use whatever you’d like. I’m still going to judge you though. This would be a nice time to use something nice from the Pacific actually. Get some of those nice tropical squishy fruit flavors. Just don’t go overboard on the hops or you’ll have a perfect American Session IPA (read hop water).

Yeast: We used London III last time. I think that fights a bit with the hops so maybe something a little more conducive to hops but also lends a lot of great ‘English’ character. Stay away from the California-type ale as you really want something from this yeast as you have very little of anything other than hops from this beer. Something Southwoldian would be marvelous.

Cask: Standard procedure:
1) let the beer ferment until finished and then give it another day or so. For me right around 5-7 days.
2) Rack the beer to your vessel of choice (firkin, polypin, cornie, whatever).
3) Add primings at ~3.5g/L
4) Add prepared isinglass at 1ml/L
5) ONLY add dry hops at 0.25g/l – 1g/L.
6) Bung it up and roll it around to mix. Condition at 55F or so for 4-5 days and its ready to go. Spile/vent. Tap. Settle. Serve at 55F.