Adnams Southwold Bitter

[seymour]

They're also much more shelf stable, thus allowing the brewery to stockpile the commodity when it comes available, is priced right, etc...

[clarets7]

Bumping this thread because it has some useful info about Adnams Bitter. On a mission to clone this with or without the genuine Adnams yeast, which has become much harder to obtain now. Going to try the GW 3rd edition first, which I have done before, but just seen this https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2 ... larity%5D.
This is the Southwold water report: - https://www.eswater.co.uk/globalassets/ ... s/Z508.pdf
My water is very soft so will be interesting to try and get close to their profile.

[Eric]

For comparison, Graham Wheeler's on the left, Dave Line's on the right.
This beer will most certainly have changed across time, Boadicea wasn't introduced until 2004.

AdnamsBitter.jpg (896.74 KiB) Viewed 5050 times

Some extracts from Adnams website.

Southwold Bitter’s packaged and cask beers are slightly different brews, that hail from separate lineages. The bottled version started life as Suffolk Strong Bitter (SSB) and its recipe was similar to the one used for Extra, a strong 4.5% cask bitter. By contrast, our regular cask bitter, was first brewed in 1967, under the name Adnams Best Bitter. Although SSB still bore the name, its branding later evolved to look more like the cask Southwold Bitter branding. SSB’s strength was eventually lowered to bring it more in line with the cask beer that shared its branding, and at the same time, the name on the bottles and cans changed to avoid any confusion. The slight difference in ABV remains for fans of the bottled format, so it didn’t stray too far from the original. Today, Southwold Bitter’s branding depicts local icon, Southwold Jack. This small wooden figure guards the brewery and represents a young soldier from the 15th Century Wars of the Roses. Named ‘Jack the Smiter’ he stands at 4 feet 4 inches tall and is constructed of painted wood. The brewery’s Jack is based on an original ‘Clock Jack’, in nearby St Edmunds Church, who strikes the hours on the church bell with his battle axe. The 'Jack Brand,' or 'Southwold Jack,' is Adnams oldest trademark and we incorporated him into our brand identity to highlight our sense of place. It was for this reason we chose him to be the emblem for Southwold Bitter in its re-branding in 2011.

Southwold Bitter is authentic and full of character, just like its namesake – our hometown on the Suffolk coast. Copper-coloured and late-hopped with Fuggles, its distinctive, thirst-quenching, herbal hoppiness keeps you coming back for more. Synonymous with pub firesides, fresh sea air and the distant sound of crashing waves, it has everything you would expect from an English Bitter.

Biscuity malts and light caramelised toffee notes balance the classic English hop character from the addition of Fuggles hops. They are added late in the brewing process, to maintain their wonderful grassy, almost minty, herbal aromas and provide a long, lingering, resinous hoppiness on the palate.

Country... United Kingdom
Hops...... Fuggles
Malts..... Pale Ale, Crystal, De-husked Black

Both homebrew recipes finish with Goldings, but Adnams say Fuggles and my last pint was memorable by flavour and aroma from late Fuggles.

Most bitter recipes include some element of crystal malt, as advised by Adnams. Simpsons Caramel Light provides caramel and toffee flavour. Amber malt is sometimes called biscuit malt and maybe a small addition could help this beer.

[clarets7]

Going off the old ingredients chart that used to be on the wall at the brewery, the cask bitter used Tipple, Caramel, Goldings, Fuggles and dry hopped Fuggles. No mention of Boadicea. I always assumed that Caramel meant just colouring, but maybe it means Caramel malt? I'm thinking now that maybe just go for a recipe with just Fuggles and Goldings, with some addition of a caramalt as well. Would still need black malt to get the colour right.

[Eric]

I'm growing a Ringwood starter at present, but the weather is too warm to contemplate brewing, I want to cool boiled wort quickly to pitch and get fermentation finished in a couple more days, then cool to cellar temperature.

I'll use the Klarstein for a small brew, but as I'm out of Fuggle pellets, will use Celeia for late hops and see how those might work. I need to order stock, so will see how that brew works out, but stock up on Fuggle for the next attempt.

I can't recall tasting any Caramel additive in Southwold Bitter, so it may indeed be caramel malt. I'll likely incorporate some Vienna malt, Caragold and invert sugar and see what happens.

[clarets7]

I've got some Simpsons amber, but will have to put an order in for some of the light crystal. I know that Adnams use the Simpsons T50 Crystal, in fact it may even have been specified by Adnams, so I'll get both. I'm running low on Fuggles as well, but do have some Savinjski Goldings so might use those up. I'll do a trial stove top brew first though.

[clarets7]

For comparison, Graham Wheeler's on the left, Dave Line's on the right.

I've not read the Dave Line books, are they any good for replicating beers of the 70's? I can see some cheap second hand ones online, which book is that from, "Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy", "Big Book of Brewing" or " Brewing British Style Beers"?

[Eric]

Dave Line was the saviour of many budding brewers of that period. In 1963 the then brewing licence requirement was abolished, so as wine makers had no such restriction, they took charge and published some of the worst guide to brewing ever produced, but Dave Line changed that.

In the picture was Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy and yes, a cheap copy is worth buying, if only for nostalgia. His hop quantities were a bit high, but in early days we could never buy them vacuum packed, indeed they were rarely recognisable as hops,

So far I've weighed out 3kg of base malt, half Pale and half Vienna, and put a recipe into Graham Wheeler's Beer Engine for Southwold Bitter that includes invert Sugar as in Dave Line's version. The weather is better for brewing than it was, but so far I've not been able fix a date, but am hoping it might be done this next week.

[clarets7]

Eric, I've bought it, only £3.49 including postage, will be an interesting read! My Simpsons T50 has arrived plus some Fuggles and First Gold hops, so hopefully I will brew on Monday, will be just pale ale, T50 and amber, black malt for colour. I wasn't planning on using any invert, although I have in the past (home made), but thinking about it a small amount might help with attenuation - I was going to use MJ M15 for this and it's only 70% to 75%, won't quite get a low enough FG maybe with all malt?

[Eric]

A bargain. It contains several long lost beers that you might find worth trying.

I'll be using up what is on hand, leaving enough for a 50 litre green hop beer when they are ready, before needing to restock when will order some better hops depending on how the first brew goes. To the base malt will be caragold, amber, black and invert and the hops will be Target, Perle and Celeia. It is highly unlikely to taste anything like the real thing, but might give some clues for the second attempt.

Monday might be a possibility for me. Busy all tomorrow and Tuesday for sure. Had a couple of decent pints of Landlord yesterday, making me to think of having a go at that soon.

[clarets7]

So brewed this yesterday: -

AG131 - Standard/Ordinary Bitter

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 25.0
Original Gravity (OG): 1.038
Final Gravity (FG): 1.010
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 3.6 %
Colour (EBC): 21
Bitterness (IBU): 33

Grain Bill
----------------
3.800 kg Pauls Pale Whale Pale Malt (91.79%)
0.200 kg Simpsons T50 Crystal (4.83%)
0.100 kg Simpsons Amber Malt (2.42%)
0.040 kg Black Malt (0.97%)

Hop Bill
----------------
35.0 g East Kent Golding Leaf (5.7% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.4 g/L)
20.0 g First Gold Leaf (4% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/L)
20.0 g Fuggles Leaf (6.9% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/L)
20.0 g Fuggles Leaf (5% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.8 g/L)
20.0 g Fuggles Leaf (5% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop) (0.8 g/L)

Mash at 65°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 22°C with MJ Empire Ale

The Empire Ale yeast has gone off like a rocket, already plenty of activity only 10 hours after pitching.

[Eric]

Also brewed yesterday, details later as I've a full day with a 2 year old. 25 litres at 1036 made of 17 litres all grain at 1047 and 8 litres water with invert sugar. Ringwood yeast away, but a little slower than usual.

[Eric]

75 minute mash.

1.500 kg Swaen Pale Ale Malt
1,500 kg Vienna Malt
0.250 Caragold
0.250 Amber Malt
0.040 Black Malt

90 minute boil
16 g Target pellet 9% 90 minutes
19 g Challenger pellet 7.6% 90 mins
10 g Golding pellet 4.2% 20 minutes
10 g Celeia pellet 3.5% 20 minutes
40 g Fuggles whole 4.9% 10 minutes

Boiled wort chilled with IC using tapwater to 30C, then chiller recirculating through IC to 18C .
400 g of Invert #1 boiled in 2 litres and added to 6 litres of tapwater treated with hydrochloric acid to remove all alkalinity, then added to FV.

Ringwood yeast has been recirculated 3 time so far.

[clarets7]

Sounds like we had a similar brewday, I ended up with 18L at around 1053 * instead of the 20L at 1047 I was aiming for, and had to add 7L to the FV instead of the 5L I had intended. All the water was treated to remove any chlorine, alkilinity is only 11 straight out of the tap so I've never bothered about that. Added salts to approximate at least the tap water of Southwold, so Ca 158, Mg 10, Na 50, Sulphate 257 and Chloride 176. Some in mash, rest in boil as I was worried about knocking the mash pH too low.

* I think that was because I'd left the Klarstein on full power during the boil, normally I knock it back a bit.

[Eric]

Indeed, very similar brewdays. Didn't collect a full volume of wort and boiled for 90 minutes, but most was done with 1.5 kW. Lost 2 litres to the sludge from pellet hops. The whole hop Fuggles were in a nylon bag, and feel little was extracted from those.

The lack of rain has made my water very hard, using hydrochloric acid to drop alkalinity to 15ppm and just over 6 g of gypsum which should have made calcium 150 ppm with a slight bias to sulphate. Don't bother removing chlorine, the level is very low.

It's muggy here tonight and I don't usually need to cool during fermentation, but might need to take action tomorrow as the wort is now at 20.6 having started at 18.4C. I'm not expecting a lot from this brew, but need some beer and is therefore essential. Next one will be a green hop with Northdown and Bramling Cross.