Beer Style: English Bitter, Mild, and Pale Ale
End Run Mild Ale
Frequent contributor and author Horst Dornbusch provides readers with a British mild ale recipe.
Wychwood Brewing Company: Hobgoblin Dark Ale clone
This ruby-colored English ale delivers a delicious chocolate toffee malt flavor, balanced with rounded moderate bitterness and an overall fruity, mischievous character.
Coopers Sparkling Ale clone
Cooper’s Sparkling Ale is the bar that all others are measured when brewing an Australian sparkling ale. According to Coopers, “Little has changed since Thomas Cooper brewed his first batch of Sparkling Ale in 1862. It’s still naturally conditioned in the bottle with our unique strain of Coopers yeast.”
English Pale Ale
“The German crystal malts are not traditional but provide richness without the cloying quality of some of the currently available English crystals. The amber invert sugar adds a bit of flavor complexity and helps dry out the finish. Hopping the mash and first runnings worked well for this one – it retained appreciable hop character despite being fairly well aged when judged.”
—Ross Mitchell (Australian Capital Territory)
Tudor Beer
Recipe author Terry Foster comments on his Tudor Beer, “Overall, it was a good crisp, fresh-tasting session beer, resembling a low-hopped version of an English summer ale. This is not so surprising when you consider that in 1503 this beer would have been in competition with the maltier and probably sweeter unhopped ale.”
Goose Island’s Honkers Ale clone
Inspired by visits to English country pubs, Honker’s Ale combines a spicy hop aroma with a rich malt middle to create a perfectly balanced beer. Immensely drinkable, Honker’s Ale is not only a beer drinkers can trust but one they’ll look forward to.
Redhook Ale Brewery’s Redhook ESB clone
This Extra Special Bitter is a deep copper-orange color, with an off-white, creamy head. The aroma is a judicious blend of fruity hops and toasted malt. Medium in body, it is full and round, with a nice blend of malt balanced with gentle hop character. Redhook ESB ends with a sweet malt finish.
Brooklyn Pennant Pale Ale ’55 clone
Pennant is a well-crafted pale ale brewed as a tribute to Brooklyn’s world champion baseball team of 1955. (That would be the Dodgers, who actually beat the Yanks in that crosstown series.)
Pennant pours with a dense light-beige head that sits on a chestnut-colored beer. The aroma is complex and malty, with a hint of freshly baked bread. The full malt flavor is balanced with a clean hop background. English hops provide a moderate bitterness that complements the smooth mouthfeel. The aftertaste is dry with a hint of hops.
Pyramid Snow Cap Ale clone
This full-bodied winter warmer is brewed in the spirit of British winter ales. Crafted with a flurry of roasted chocolate and caramel malts, and generously hopped, it delivers a smooth finish that makes this beer the perfect cold weather companion. This clone recipe first ran in the July 1998 issue and has been tweaked several times through the years.
Bonneville Flats Bitter
“I brewed this beer on a Sunday and served it to my homebrew club the next Saturday. I thought it would still be green at that point, but it actually tasted finished Friday evening. I designed the recipe and procedures to not only yield a beer that would ferment and conditionquickly, but one that would be quick to put together on brew day.”
— recipe author Chris Colby
6-Day Mild Ale
“The name reflects that I needed a large amount of yeast ready in 6 days, so brewed up a batch of mild. I needed to grow enough yeast to make a batch of OG 1.116 barleywine for filling a bourbon barrel. The mild was made one weekend and was racked to a keg the following weekend while the mash was underway for the barleywine. The chilled barleywine wort was then transferred onto the yeast cake from the mild and a little oxygen was added. There was activity in the airlock within about an hour.”
— recipe author Steve Piatz
Elysian Brewing Company: The Wise clone
The first beer that Elysian Brewing Co. brewed, The Wise ESB is a classic British Special Bitter. The recipe was shared with Brew Your Own magazine in 2010 in honor of the 15th Anniversary of Elysian Brewing and BYO.
