1500 Ale Recipes (ingredients & percentages)

[thefirstleachy]

Hi all. Whilst researching ale recipes on the Internet I came across this website (see link below), which appears to be someone's interpretation of approximately 1500 ales. Some ales have the ingredients and the percentages used along with the type of hops used and some ales has very little information. I don't know whether the information is accurate or not and some of the information is difficult to decipher, but it's a good place to start for some ales.

I was a little worried about copyright issues but the article does not seem to be linked to anyone and is out there in the public domain so I thought I would share it with you all. Enjoy!

http://kotmf.com/articles/1500ukbeers.doc

[FlourPower]

A little confused what this article actually tells us.

For instance Banks and Taylor's Dragonslayer caught my eye but have no idea how to use the information to work out a grain bill. Same with Beamish and even tanglefoot which I believe will be my next brew.

[boingy]

Dreadful formatting but it looks like someone has amalgamated info from Protz, Wheeler and others in one big document. I'm not sure of the "copyright-safeness" of this but I do know that distributing it as an MS Word document was daft because the document statistics log the name of the author and the name of the person who last saved it!

You can put together a sort of recipe from most of those entries . It typcally gives you OG, the grain percentages, the hop varieties and the IBU.

[thefirstleachy]

It is really dreadful formatting and quite difficult to follow in some instances, as well as, annoyingly not having information on some of the beers that I like. However with a bit of patience you can work out quite a bit from the info on there.

As I say, I am not sure about the copy right situation, maybe a moderator can have a look and make a judgement call. However I came across the article doing a simple google search and I couldn't work out the origin of the information. I thought it was just someone's thoughts on all the beers that they have tried. I didn't know it had more information on who had saved it etc. I presume that info is relating to the author of the document and not my link?!

Anyway I was only trying to give other people some information that I came across on the Internet which could be used as a good reference tool/starting point.

[boingy]

Don't worry. I wasn't having a go at you, leachy. Yes, the info in the DOC is related to the original author and the person who last saved it.

The key at the top of the first page lists the sources of info as:

"RP-Roger Protz (appropriate edition of Real Ale Drinkers Almanac),
GW-Graham Wheeler,
LH-Les Howarth,
EBA-European Beer Drinkers Almanac"

Somone has put a lot of work into collating that info.

[FlourPower]

Okay so it seems the first few beers I thought of have very little information on them. Looking through some seem to be almost complete recipes some just clues that can be decoded with by a hefty dose of GW's Beer Engine.

I'd certainly like to think about making some Death or Glory by Tring brewery, however they do give money to the forces for each bottle sold.

Ahhh Dilemma!

[thefirstleachy]

Cheers Boingy, I know you weren't having a go.

I was just clarifying to the first poster how the article can be used. In relation to the reference to the authors, I obviously saw that but it is not clear what information in that article is attributable to them and which is from the author.

I was thinking of trying to edit the information into a more user friendly format but I think it would have taken me years!

JHB by Oakham is a nice pint and some crackers from Titanic Brewery are on there too.

[mysterio]

I have Les Howarth's book, and I paid for it, it's a shame somebody's just skimmed off all the information and put it online.

[FlourPower]

I have Les Howarth's book, and I paid for it, it's a shame somebody's just skimmed off all the information and put it online.

I think we'd all agree that GW and Les's books are much more use than the document posted and would suggest all should buy them as they are nice items and can still be brought new (high sales may call for reprint/more commissioned works/when is GW&RP going to update the European book?)

However I'm sure if people use their common sense and look to buy a book should they start getting good results from this information then I'd imagine no harm is done.

As for Roger Protz, I think I'd rather see the information as is than see yet another picture of his odd smile. What can I say he scares me?

[flytact]

I too have seen this, but in an MS Excel format. I have never used it for brewing other than sorting on what hops I have available and then looking at the other ingredients. If "GW" appears in a column then I get my book and look further at the recipe.

[FlourPower]

I was thinking it would be better in XLS and sorting for hops is a great use of it.

[LegTaste]

Just because i find it a bit annoying when people start talking about copyright. You can not copyright a recipe. You could take every single recipe from a book and post it online and legally you wouldn't be doing anything wrong. The only way you could potentially infringe any copyright is if you were to copy massive blocks of text or the whole book word for word.

[Graham]

Just because i find it a bit annoying when people start talking about copyright. You can not copyright a recipe. You could take every single recipe from a book and post it online and legally you wouldn't be doing anything wrong. The only way you could potentially infringe any copyright is if you were to copy massive blocks of text or the whole book word for word.

Even if we are talking about your grandma's steak and kidney pudding, you can be sued over recipe copyright if material interests are at stake. Restaurants have sued other restaurants in the past, quite successfully.

There is no difficulty copyrighting a collection of recipes; that is why there is a copyright symbol in the front of my book - it isn''t put there for fun. Even so, a recipe, even a single recipe, is someone's intellectual property - you can still be sued for infringing intellectual rights. If you think that someone can put many hours of work and financial investment into developing a novel recipe without protection from the law - then think again!

Many hours of research goes into obtaining information from the breweries, letters, translations to European breweries, postage even. All this costs time and money. Interpreting that information and turning it into workable recipes takes specialist knowledge and skill. Putting a book together takes a lot of time. If you think that all that work can be simply stolen without redress - then think again!

I will tell you now that CAMRA, Roger and myself came very close to suing Les Howarth. It was only because his book was self published, did not seem to be doing very well, and was not harming us, that we refrained. Had it been a professional publisher we would have sued.

We did start legal proceedings against the publisher of another author that shall remain nameless, but they were a small publisher and we came to an out-of-court agreement whereby they were allowed to sell their current print run on condition that they did not reprint it.

So, ever so clever Sonny-Jim, if you want to put it to the test - try taking all my recipes and publish them on line and see what happens to you. I will guarantee that you will be forced to put your money where your mouth is.

[boingy]

Just because i find it a bit annoying when people start talking about copyright. You can not copyright a recipe. You could take every single recipe from a book and post it online and legally you wouldn't be doing anything wrong. The only way you could potentially infringe any copyright is if you were to copy massive blocks of text or the whole book word for word.

Even if we are talking about your grandma's steak and kidney pudding, you can be sued over recipe copyright if material interests are at stake. Restaurants have sued other restaurants in the past, quite successfully.

There is no difficulty copyrighting a collection of recipes; that is why there is a copyright symbol in the front of my book - it isn''t put there for fun. Even so, a recipe, even a single recipe, is someone's intellectual property - you can still be sued for infringing intellectual rights. If you think that someone can put many hours of work and financial investment into developing a novel recipe without protection from the law - then think again!

Many hours of research goes into obtaining information from the breweries, letters, translations to European breweries, postage even. All this costs time and money. Interpreting that information and turning it into workable recipes takes specialist knowledge and skill. Putting a book together takes a lot of time. If you think that all that work can be simply stolen without redress - then think again!

I will tell you now that CAMRA, Roger and myself came very close to suing Les Howarth. It was only because his book was self published, did not seem to be doing very well, and was not harming us, that we refrained. Had it been a professional publisher we would have sued.

We did start legal proceedings against the publisher of another author that shall remain nameless, but they were a small publisher and we came to an out-of-court agreement whereby they were allowed to sell their current print run on condition that they did not reprint it.

So, ever so clever Sonny-Jim, if you want to put it to the test - try taking all my recipes and publish them on line and see what happens to you. I will guarantee that you will be forced to put your money where your mouth is.

Morning, Graham. I do enjoy some of your "so-late-it's-early" posts!

I fully agree with the sentiment in your reply and I would also like to add that regardless of the legality of this stuff we should also be thinking about the morality of it. Even if it is legal (and I don't think it is) that does not mean it is right.

[Graham]

Yes, I am not at my best when I am going through a phase of insomnia, or alcohol induced boredom. Besides "I find it a bit annoying" when...

A recipe can be copyrighted if "creativity" can be proved. Anything, recipes or not, such as research, that involves labour, skill and effort is protected under law if material loss occurs, or reputation is harmed, by somebody pinching it.

"A recipe book like any other book, which surpasses the criteria for protection, can be protected as a literary work. Indeed, where such works are reproduced in any material form the copyright owner could sue under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) s.17(2) for infringing their copyright."
TAKEN FROM HERE