Tiny Rebel Brewing Co.
Dear Replicator,
I recently took my first trip to London, England (technically for work, but emotionally for the beers) and had a blast exploring the pub culture. As a huge fan of cask ales, and attempting to replicate them as a homebrewer, I paid particular attention to all the beers on hand pump across the city. In all my tastings (for science, of course) the one I kept coming back to was Tiny Rebel Brewing Co.’s Bitter Sweet Symphony ESB. It was everything I wanted in an ESB and it almost pained me to try other beers after it. Turns out, it was impossible to find in cans or bottles and further investigation on their website indicates it’s only available in cask and it’s a seasonal brew. Short of importing a cask from Europe in the next few weeks, finding a replica recipe is my only hope. Can you work your magic and deliver the goods? Thanks in advance!
Jeremy Bersano
Chicago, Illinois
Thanks Jeremy for your request! You hit a soft spot in my heart as I also have a penchant for a well-made ESB. And with the good nature of the folks at Tiny Rebel Brewing, you won’t have to pay for the extravagant shipping charges and import a cask of Bitter Sweet Symphony either.
Tiny Rebel was founded in Newport, South Wales in 2012, by brothers-in-law Brad Cummings and Gareth (Gazz) Williams. As is the case with many of the modern breweries, Gazz learned to homebrew from someone close to him — his grandfather. Gazz subsequently introduced Brad to the hobby. After several informative years as homebrewers, the two decided to up their game and turn the love they had for the hobby into a profession. The pair rented an industrial unit in the Maesglas area of Newport and had to rapidly expand into the neighboring unit due to demand of their product.
But what to call their brewery? “It eventually became blindingly obvious. Two blokes in a garage seeking an alternative to big brewery rubbish. We’re tiny, but we’re rebels . . . brewing whatever took our fancy, adding weird and wonderful stuff to our brews. We are ‘Tiny Rebel’.”
“All that we needed was an image that ties together every aspect of our attitude: Fun, creativity, relaxation, and rebelliousness. Like our home city of Newport, we’re a bit rough around the edges. We love the urban environment and all the graffiti artwork that comes with it. And so our bear came to be!”
The company opened their first bar, Urban Tap House, in Cardiff in late 2013, with the sweat equity that accompanied winning the top three places at the Great Welsh Beer and Cider Festival. The heavy lifting was done with three beers from their initial lineup: Dirty Stop Out (gold), a smoked oat stout; FUBAR (silver), an American Pale Ale; and Urban IPA (bronze), an intercontinental IPA. Because of this showing, they were crowned with the title Champion Beer of Wales, which they then went on to defend in 2014 when FUBAR won gold. Later in 2015, a branch of the Urban Tap House opened in Tiny Rebel’s hometown of Newport further expanding the brand.
2016 brought further expansion of Tiny Rebel. The brand of Urban Tap House was retired and both bars were renamed Tiny Rebel. Then, in the middle of 2016, the company announced a massive expansion with a 36,000-sq.-ft. (3,350-sq.-m) brewing facility in the Rogerstone area of Newport. After moving into their new brewery and bar in July 2017, Tiny Rebel was able to increase their capacity up to five-fold to keep up the growing demand of their beers. This equates to up to 20,000 L (~5,280 gallons) per day. In terms of packaging, they can fill ~2,000 cans per hour (~35 kegs or ~50 casks an hour).
Staying true to themselves, Tiny Rebel remains a close supporter of activities and events in their local community. Before the company moved into their Rogerstone brewery and bar, they ran a local competition to find their “Biggest Fan” who would win the chance to cut the ribbon at the opening on the company’s behalf. The winner was later offered a job in the business. In addition, they support St. David’s Hospice Care, which is located 5 miles from their Newport brewery, and provides hospice care to over 3,300 people.
As beer is a creative product, Tiny Rebel aids other organizations in their creative efforts as well. They support the Welsh Music Prize, which celebrates the best of Wales-based sound and happens to be a perfect fit as Tiny Rebel employs several musicians. Alternatively, Tiny Rebel and BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Cymru announced a one-year partnership at the same time as the Rogerstone locations opened. “We were immensely proud to team up with them. Together, we celebrate Welsh creativity on screen and in the glass!”
Bitter Sweet Symphony isn’t your typical ESB. Although it’s fermented with a traditional top-cropping English yeast, the rest of the ingredients are global in nature. A good portion of the hops are from the United States and most of the additions are in the whirlpool or as dry hop for that extra punch. Also, the malt bill comes from the UK, US, and Germany. The added Munich malt adds the bit of base malt complexity without additional specialty malts. As for the crystal 300, feel free to substitute this out for another dark crystal with rich toffee or dark fruit character or use a darker Munich malt to compensate. With any luck you’ll be able to craft this unique ESB with plenty of character to go around and won’t have to import an entire cask.
Tiny Rebel Brewing Co.’s Bitter Sweet Symphony clone
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.056 FG = 1.012
IBU = 30 SRM = 12 ABV = 5.7%
Ingredients
8.5 lbs. (3.86 kg) pale ale malt
1.25 lbs. (0.57 kg) Munich malt
1.25 lbs. (0.57 kg) torrified wheat
0.5 lb. (0.23 kg) crystal 300 malt (115 °L)
2.8 AAU Cascade hops (60 min.) (0.35 oz./10 g at 8% alpha acids)
16 AAU Cascade hops (0 min.) (2 oz./57 g at 8% alpha acids)
1 oz. (28 g) Bramling Cross hops (dry hop)
2 oz. (57 g) El Dorado® hops (dry hop)
Wyeast 1275 (Thames Valley) or White Labs WLP023 (Burton Ale) or SafAle S-04 yeast
½ cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Mill the grains, then mix with 3.6 gallons (13.6 L) of 166 °F (74 °C) strike water to achieve a single infusion rest temperature of 151 °F (66 °C). Hold at this temperature for 60 minutes. Vorlauf until your runnings are clear before directing them to your boil kettle. Batch or fly sparge the mash to obtain 6.5 gallons (25 L) of wort in the kettle. If fly sparing, stop once your running’s SG hits 1.012 and top off to the desired pre-boil volume with water. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops at the times indicated above left in the boil. At 15 minutes left in boil add either Irish moss, Whirlfloc, or other kettle fining agent of your choice.
After the boil, add flame-out hops and whirlpool for 15 minutes before rapidly chilling the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, which is 70 °F (21 °C) for this beer. Pitch yeast and aerate well.
Maintain fermentation temperature to avoid producing too many esters, which can easily occur with this strain. Once primary fermentation is done, drop the temperature to 61 °F (16 °C). Add the dry hops and let them extract for 5 days. Bottle or keg the beer and carbonate to approximately 2.0 volumes.
Tiny Rebel Brewing Co.’s Bitter Sweet Symphony clone
(5 gallons/19 L, partial mash)
OG = 1.057 FG = 1.013
IBU = 30 SRM = 11 ABV = 5.7%
Ingredients
4.5 lbs. (2.04 kg) light dried malt extract
1 lb. (0.45 kg) Munich dried malt extract
1.25 lbs. (0.57 kg) torrified wheat
0.5 lb. (0.23 kg) crystal 300 malt (115 °L)
2.8 AAU Cascade hops (60 min.) (0.35 oz./10 g at 8% alpha acids)
16 AAU Cascade hops (0 min.) (2 oz./57 g at 8% alpha acids)
1 oz. (28 g) Bramling Cross hops (dry hop)
2 oz. (57 g) El Dorado® hops (dry hop)
Wyeast 1275 (Thames Valley) or White Labs WLP023 (Burton Ale) or SafAle S-04 yeast
½ cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Bring 6.5 gallons (25 L) of water to roughly 150 °F (66 °C). Steep the torrified wheat and crystal malt for 15 minutes before removing. Add the malt extracts, with stirring, before heating to a boil. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops at the times indicated above left in the boil. At 15 minutes left in boil, add either Irish moss, Whirlfloc or other kettle fining agent of your choice.
After the boil, add flame-out hops and whirlpool for 15 minutes before rapidly chilling the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, which is 70 °F (21 °C) for this beer. Pitch yeast.
Maintain fermentation temperature to avoid producing too many esters, which can easily occur with this strain. Once primary fermentation is done, drop the temperature to 61 °F (16 °C). Add the dry hops and let them extract for 5 days. Bottle or keg the beer and carbonate to approximately 2.0 volumes.
Tips for Success:
First off, let’s talk about numbers. If you put the amount of hops into your favorite brewing software program, you’ll likely find that the IBUs calculated are far from the value of 30 given. Fear not, the ratio of hops comes straight from Tiny Rebel’s brewers and there will be plenty of hop character. Hop chemistry is a complex beast and elements such as flavor, isomerization, etc., remains cloaked in mystery.
As for your water chemistry, Mark Gammons, Tiny Rebel’s Production Manager, recommends a profile to target a traditional sweet ale flavor. Within these boundaries, shoot for 200 ppm total hardness with chlorides around 150 ppm. In addition, the pH of your wort prior to pitching should be around 5.1, which means that your mash pH should be at the upper end of the ideal mash pH range, 5.4–5.5.
Finally, there’s nowhere for inferior ingredients to hide in this style. Use the freshest ingredients possible otherwise it’ll show faster than a year-old IPA.
