Under Construction: Home-brewed Real Ale

by Harry Graham

Ever since my first visit to England, these cravings for a cask conditioned Real Ale strike late at night. How to quench such a thirst? Why not brew my own! What are the characteristics attributed to a Real Ale? Ultimately it’s the packaging and serving that are unique to the style. The quintessential variety is a Bitter. Objectively, the following might apply:

Aroma: Dry hop and/or malt

Flavor: Malt

Aftertaste: Subtle bittering from the hops

Color: Light to dark copper

OG: 1.035-1.045

FG: 1.008-1.020

Yeast: Top fermenting

Complexity from Simplicity

Such a simple brew gets complexity from several places. First, fermentation is completed in the package. Second, dry hops in the cask. Third, and most important, is the exposure to air when served. This is the most obvious reason that real ale is not locally available. The beer changes and matures from day to day, after it has been tapped, and has a very short serving life, somewhere from 3 to 7 days.

Clarity: Cloudy Yellow Ale NOT!

A cask conditioned ale cannot be served unless it is brilliant (By comparison, mine was rather stupid). This level of clarity is traditionally achieved by adding finings to the cask, and by serving at cellar temperature to avoid chill haze. The finings are usually in the form of Isinglass.

Serving is the key

Most English pubs serve their real ale through a swan neck, which injects air into the flow, which results in a creamy head. The more traditional approach is to run from the tap, directly to the glass. In either case, there is very little carbonation in the glass. This allows the drinker to put lots of nice ale in the stomach where those nasty CO2 bubbles normally reside. This is a good reason to keep the gravity in check.

Helpful Hints

Keep the cask size small, and plan around a gathering to make sure that it gets drunk up in a short period of time.

Keep the cask sealed from the air until it is tapped.

An ice tea jar or jug makes a good cask. Seal the top with plastic wrap, and secure with a rubber band. This may need to be removed when the cask is tapped to allow the ale to flow out of the tap.

Don’t move, shake, or otherwise disturb the cask during the conditioning/tapping phases.

Shake the cask vigorously after the addition of the finings and dry hops to get them well distributed.

Keep the temperature in the 55-65 F range. A wet towel on top of the cask moderates the temperature.

Add some priming sugar to activate the yeast if the secondary fermentation has finished.

Recipe for "Bitter to the End" makes 10 gallons:

Mash:

15 lb. pale malt
3 lb. British 70/80 crystal malt, add the last 10 minutes of the mash
Acidify mash as needed.

Boil: 90 minutes

3 oz. Tettnanger, 5.0 alpha, for 90 minutes
2 oz. Willamette, 4.9 alpha, for 45 minutes
2 oz. Willamette, 4.9 alpha, for 15 minutes
1 oz. Willamette, 4.9 alpha, at end of boil
Irish moss added last 30 minutes of boil

Yeast: Whitbread and Nottingham

Dry hops:

1/2 oz. to 2 gallons.

1 Tbs. Isinglass, rehydrated.
Small amount of priming sugar

O.G.: 1.040

Comments:

The color is perfect, as well as the final gravity (which I failed to write down), but the bittering hops dominate too much. Cut back on the first 2 hop additions for a little more complexity. The water was not treated, and is fairly soft, but a little hardening might be appropriate, especially in view of cutting back on the hops. The hop aroma was more subtle than I would have liked, but the hops were contained in a hop bag to try to keep from making a mess. Next time, try some loose hops in the cask.