Greene King Abbot Ale

[graysalchemy]

[Dennis King]

Was definitely stronger back in the day, as I said I think there is a certain amount of b*llocks from greedy king. The big shame is in those days they were a medium size regional brewer championing cask beer, even the IPA was a reasonable pint then.

That's always good to know I have increased the ABV up to 5.5% and it seems to balance much better with a bitterness of 36.

I'm now questioning the hops involved as there seems a huge divergence on what's known and what's been brewed before.

It is entirely possible that Northern Brewer was used prior to Challengers release in 1968 and the recipe I have encompasses (possibly) the 2 most regularly available hops at the time, Fuggles and Goldings, but no other hops are mentioned.

As I don't know what year this ledger was I will assume that Fuggles and Goldings were the only hops used from the 50's to the begining of the 70's.

Challenger also crops up a lot in clone recipes, if you have any knowledge of this Dennis I'd appreciate it, or anyone else in that matter.

This leads me to think that the first subtle recipe change could possibly have happened anytime after 1970 and before 1974, shortly after Challenger became available and I would guess G.K. Would have undertaken trial runs from 1968 - 1970 (1974) before making a change.

I do love some good speculation.

Just remember that hop availability fluctuates year on year, so the recipe will change to reflect that. I have a recipe for Adnams Southwold that uses Fuggles and Golding . . . but I've also seen that they have recently used Boadicea . . . and my now actually be using Challenger

Whoops, I hit the wrong button and posted the above prematurely. I could wax on about the Tinseth formula for several more paragraphs, but as I have already posted plenty of words, albeit accidentally, I will spare you the torture.

Thanks for that Graham, always a wealth of knowledge when you come along.

If he was as close as it sounds to the hop schedule I may well have to alter mine. It also makes me wonder if the recipe I obtained is from the first year or two of the 70's of his book was published in '78 and lists the bill as Goldings and Northern brewer.

I would also hazard a guess that if Dennis drank it in '73 and Dave Lines is the closest to what he remembers then I'm going to assume that mine is the period between 1970 - 1973.

I will email Geoff and see if he knows who supplied G.K's hops for those years and what the biggest crops were, this might also help narrow the year down.

Maybe the Fuggles crop was crap those years and dawned a new hop schedule based on the years harvest?

There is more work to be done.

[Dennis King]

[Dennis King]

[Dennis King]

Amazing the way the mind works, I can remember most of the different beers I've tried but......................it's the wife's birthday today and despite buying a card last week I totally forgot this morning. At least I was able to produce the card to prove I hadn't forgot.

[Joe1002]

Well you work in the right industry to redeem yourself

Dont forget to send me a bottle kyle need to judge it and give you my comments lol

Depending how it goes Rob I may well make this a donation for next year.

+1 to the comments by Dennis re abbot in the 70s & 80s
I also have the dave line book I bought when I first started and agree the recipe when I tried it back then was close.
Aleman is correct in that the hops we get now are vastly better than in the 70s.I remember buying them from a homebrew shop in ipswich straight from a packet sat on the shelf in full daylight/shop lighting.

maybe ill also revisit this brew, although last time I drank it it gave me a splitting headache from only a couple of pints ,never did that in the 70s

While I accept that Tinseth's formula has it's flaws . . .especially when taken to extremes of gravity and time in boil, it is one way of estimating / predicting / educated guessing / prophesying the effects on bitterness depending on time in boil etc.

Assuming a flat 20% for bittering hops (at 90 / 60 minutes), and Zero for 15 minute / 0 minute steeped for 30 minutes also strikes me as much as guesswork as anything else. There are a vast amount of variables involved in hop utilisation, and even Glenn remarks on this. I was lucky enough many years ago when I first came across his formula to have access to a lab, that enabled me to determine IBU levels over time during the boil, and tweak the Tinseth fudge factors to suit my kettle. This actually produced good results for me as long as I stayed within a sensible range of gravities . . .sadly I no longer have that kettle, and my beers are less bitter than I would now expect.

There is no perfect way to determine the potential bitterness of a known quantity of hop with a 'known' bitterness, boiled at a known gravity for a known period of time, all the formulae have flaws, and the best recommendation is to pick one, and learn, by brewing, what the results mean for you on your kit, then tweak the recommendations of the formulae to produce the effects you want. The downside of that means brewing lots of the same recipe over and over tweaking volumes, gravities and hop quantities . . .and having to drink the results of course.

I will also agree that if you have a recipe from a ledger, like the Durden Park books, then use the quantities specified in the recipe, otherwise you are not brewing the beer in the ledger. The number of people who actually knew/know what those beers tasted like is getting fewer and fewer, you are going to be in the right ball park. There are too many variations in ingredients to produce anything more than an approximation anyway . .. even if you were to get samples of hops from the same hop pocket as the brewery, malt from the brewery grain store, and scale down from their quantities to ours, you would still produce an approximation to the commercial beer.

After having a think I have decided to combine elements of both the ledger recipe and Dave Lines along with the information provided by Dennis and other Abbot drinkers. Whether or not it will be similar to the beer of 70's & 80's I cannot say but I'm sure I know some people who will be willing to give a verdict

This is what I will brew sometime this week or next:

Greene King Abbot Ale 1970/80
11C. Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.930
Total Hops (g): 81.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.054 (°P): 13.3
Final Gravity (FG): 1.012 (°P): 3.1
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.54 %
Colour (SRM): 12.8 (EBC): 25.3
Bitterness (IBU): 36.6 (Tinseth)
Balance (BU:GU): 0.68
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 80
Boil Time (Minutes): 90

Grain Bill
----------------
4.081 kg Pale Malt (82.78%)
0.310 kg Invert Sugar No. 3 (6.29%)
0.310 kg Flaked Maize (6.29%)
0.185 kg Crystal 30 (3.75%)
0.044 kg Chocolate (0.89%)

Hop Bill
----------------
20.0 g Challenger Leaf (7.3% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
36.0 g East Kent Golding Leaf (5% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil) (1.6 g/L)
15.0 g Fuggles Leaf (5.6% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.7 g/L)
10.0 g East Kent Golding Leaf (5% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop) (0.4 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------
1/2 Protofloc Tablet @ 15 Minutes (Boil)

Four step mash:

Mash In: 60°C
Step 1: 60°C for 5 Minutes
Step 2: 63°C for 40 Minutes
Step 3: 65°C for 50 Minutes
Step 4: 78°C for 40 Minutes

Fermented at 21°C with Wibblers yeast for 4 days.
Lower to 13°C 24 hours after skimming yeast.
Lower to 10°C 24 hours before racking.

Recipe Generated with

Wow, great thread, all the big guns offering excellent information...

BB

I only posted because the thread happened to be touching one of my pet subjects. I won't be making a habit of it.

Attempting to tell the world-wide home brewing movement that they have been doing it wrong all these years tends to put a few noses out of joint.