The Rev. James

[Normski]

I quite like the Treacle Idea, maybe even instead of some of the sugar. As theres no crystal and Im not sure theres any Chocolate.
Maybe a little Black malt instead of the chocolate if its just for colour.
I think the Treacle could add a little sweetness and the colour would be darker. Which is going in the right direction. maybe less chocolate and more Treacle? keeping close to 30Ebc.
Its quoted as - The Rev. James is a 4.5% ABV dark best bitter carried over from the Buckley's range after the two breweries merged.
I think it gonna have to be brewed and compared to see which way to go.
When you are next in a Rev James pub see if you can get a nice yeasty pint and culture the yeast up. Maybe even ask for the dregs from a keg if you know the pub well. I dont think any of the bottles are conditioned, So cant get yeast there.

[dean_wales]

I am a little worried about what the flavour contribution will be from the treacle but will go with it for now as there isnt much of it.

In terms of the malt used to adjust the colour, what would be the pros and cons of using Chocolate, Roasted Wheat and Black malt. Essentially we want to keep the beer quite light in feel/flavour and only adjust the colour and maybe add some toasty aroma without much sweetness.

I could get hold of some brewers caramel to adjust the colour if that would be better? For now I have changed to Roasted Wheat malt as it appears to be the smoothest flavoured dark malt - what kind of colour hue do people finds this gives?

We are still largely guessing with the hop additions. Anyone more experienced have a view on the timings and and IBU's? I think the vareitys are accurate as we can be.

I dont know if I could risk culturing up the yeast from a pint! I don't know any Brains landlords well enough to go to the cask either - my locals weren't/aren't Brains pubs. I wish we had an idea of the best yeast to use. I have Whitelabs WLP002, Wyeast 1098 and dried yeast in the form of Safale S04 and Nottingham.

Once BeerSmith 2.1 comes out next week - this attempt at a clone will be in the cloud!

Thanks,

Dean.

[jollytaxpayer]

Thought you'd like to know... Lidl's are selling a range of Brains 500g bottles for £1.29, the Dark Ale is good. They've also got Rev James and SA

[mattjazz2000]

Went into our local Lidl's on Sunday and the Rev was long gone.

As a novice brewer this thread makes very informative reading, I love finding out what each ingredient adds v another.
I shall await the results with baited breath.

[beerbeerbeer]

How did this go in the end?

[JonoT]

I brewed dean_wales's recipe at the end of of last year, Its quite a while since i drank the real stuff so can't really compare, but its made a fantastic beer.

[dean_wales]

I cant decide on the treacle or the colour grains as details I can find of these are sketchy or non existant. I don't want that harsh coffee taste from the dark grain so have decided to opt for roasted wheat (the limited info online also says wheat is an ingredient so I have stuck to it by using wheat malt and roasted wheat.

So I have decided to do a split batch. One five gallon FV will get treacle as the sugar and main colourant with a hint of roasted wheat to get it to 35EBC and the second FV will get regular invert sugar with more roasted wheat to achieve the desired colour.

The FV with no treacle you will see has a slightly lower % of sugar as treacle is slightly less fermentable.

I wanted to do a fairly warm mash and so have needed to go with the drier Whitbread strain of liquid yeast to get the %ABV to come out right.

Both recipes are in the BeerSmith cloud here and here.

Or for those who are not BeerSmith fans the current recipes are as follows. Tweaks and critique very welcome, not sure about the minimal hopping!

2013 - Rev James (with treacle)
Brewer: Dean Holland
Style: Special/Best/Premium Bitter


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size (fermenter): 25.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.047 SG
Estimated Color: 35 EBC
Estimated IBU: 30IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name
4.00 kg Pale Ale (Crisp) (7.9 EBC) 77.6 %
0.50 kg Pale Wheat (Dingemans) (3.2 EBC) 9.7 %
0.12 kg Roasted Wheat (1000.0 EBC) 2.3 %
0.45 kg Treacle (197.0 EBC) 8.7 %
0.08 kg Sugar (Priming) (2.0 EBC) 1.6 %
35.00 g Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 90min
0.25 Items Whirlfloc Tablet - Boil 15min
25.00 g Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 5min
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 5min
1.0 pkg British Ale Yeast (Wyeast Labs #1098)

2013 - Rev James (no treacle)
Brewer: Dean Holland
Style: Special/Best/Premium Bitter


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size (fermenter): 25.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.047 SG
Estimated Color: 35EBC
Estimated IBU: 30IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name
4.00 kg Pale Ale (Crisp) (7.9 EBC) 77.0 %
0.50 kg Pale Wheat (Dingemans) (3.2 EBC) 9.6 %
0.21 kg Roasted Wheat (1000.0 EBC) 4.0 %
0.40 kg Lyle's Golden Syrup (0.0 EBC) 7.7 %
0.08 kg Sugar (Priming) (2.0 EBC) 1.6 %
35.00 g Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 90min
0.25 Items Whirlfloc Tablet - Boil 15min
25.00 g Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 5min
25.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 5min
1.0 pkg British Ale Yeast (Wyeast Labs #1098)


Mash Schedule (both recipes):

Single Infusion, Full Body (68.9c), No Mash Out

Fermentation (both recipes):

Ferment each FV with one smack pack of yeast at 18c in the temperature controlled chamber for 14 days.
Crash cool for two days to clear and then prime to 1.8 vols with the sugar included in recipe above.

Age for 30 days before taste testing.

[Normski]

Hi Dean
So your 30 days are about up. Hows the taste test turn out.
Norm

[dean_wales]

Haha. You act like I am a well organised individual.

No brew yet as I am still finishing the new brewery. I am also worried about the treacle - I cant find any information or reviews of people using it in 5% - 10% of recipes. I also want to drink another couple of bottles to taste taste and take the FG but didn't pick up any when working in Wales last week and cant find it locally

If anyone can can vouch for that amount in a recipe and what kind of flavour it brings I would really love to hear from you.

Nervous about making 5 gallons of phishh.

Dean.

[Normski]

Hi Dean. Sorry i misread the post. Thought you had already made a split batch and was waiting 30 days for it to condition.

I recon it'll be a fine brew. If in doubt make a small batch. Just scale it down an try it.

Norm

[dean_wales]

My rig doesnt/wont do small batches easily. Large losses etc.

Gear towards 50L minimum! That is its biggest downside and it makes me nervous when trying new brews which are a little unusual or experimental.

[dean_wales]

Havent brewed this yet but had a bottle last night and saved some to check FG today.

Degassed and at 20c it is coming out at approximately 1.010 to 1.011 on my hydrometer. So drier than some british ales and probably due to the sugar content and/or use of the drier whitbread yeast I suspected earlier.

Another piece in the jigsaw anyway! Time to tweak my recipe a little more.

[dean_wales]

So I also whipped two homebrew books to see if they could help.

Radical Brewing (how I love this book) has an ancient welsh ale recipe from circa 1800. This uses molasess (treacle) and is referred to in the braggot section next to the article about old welsh bragawd. So I think it is very likely that this beer does contain molasess/treacle as rev james dates back to 1885 apparently and I cant imagine too much variation in the beer scene in those days. The additional adjuncts he suggests though is liquorice root and grains of paradise. I think a very small addition of liquorice root would make a good addition as it again fits the age and terroir of the beer - will omit the grains of paradise and save those for something else.

Clone Brews is a little less reliable and only has a recipe for a Brains regular ale but the they go go with fuggles and goldings and add sugar. They suggest Wyeast 1028 or a backup of 1098.

My Welsh cookery books do harp on about the popularity of spice in ancient Wales so I am game for some spice and it fits.

Dean.

[Normski]

Hi Dean

Little by little i think a recipe is formimg here.

I gota say I think the - grains of paradise - sound interesting.

Norm

[seymour]

Not full recipes as such, more tips and pointers along the lines of..."you won't go far wrong with such'n'such hop" or "US05 will give a similar beer", and so on. It could be all BS of course, but I choose to believe it

At the risk of hijacking this Reverand James thread, I think we'd all love to hear the specific details you recieved from any commercial brewers.Would you mind sharing some of the nuggets you've gleaned?