Belhaven 90/- Wee Heavy Clone

[Zephyr259]

Hi Folks, I got a box of Belhaven "craft" beer a while ago and I had the 90/- Wee Heavy they other night an was blown away, it was soft, sweet, fruity and malty, everything I've been trying for in my strong beers but not quite achieving.

Their website says it's just pale and black malts, bittered to 26 IBUs with Challenger and Goldings, 7.2%. I've done some research and found it amusing that the first thread I found was someone else lamenting the fact that internet recipes for the style are all over the place and unreliable, I then found the common recipes and agreed with his sentiment. I don't think American Victory and Belgian biscuit would be traditional malts for this style. :-)

There's a highly regarded recipe by a guy called Skotrat for a Traquair House Ale clone, it's pale malt, coloured with black malt and low bittering, the tricks are boiling down some first runnings (like I did with my bock) and boiling for 90 - 120 mins. I'm trying to get some of the Traquair Ale, but the places that sell it think Aberdeenshire is in the highlands so want to charge me daft postage, think I've found a way round that though.

Has anyone got experience with this style? I know several of you brew barleywines but my barleywines haven't come out as soft or sweet, they've had a decent chunk of crystal malt in them but the first is a bit rough being my 2nd AG batch, it's 30 IBUs but ended up too dry so the alcohol is a bit spiky, the 2nd has 50 IBUs and is only 3 months old so it's a fair comparison.

Maybe a trick would be forgoing gypsum and using only calcium chloride to give the soft mouthfeel? Also hold back IBUs to 0.2 - 0.25 BU/GU would help. I'm almost out of my Irish pale malt and was going to get a sack of Maris Otter next but maybe I should try Golden Promise?

Feels weird aiming for such a complex beer with such a simple recipe but it seems pretty common for Barleywines too.

Thanks for any advice offered.

 

[Drunkula]

What sulphate to chloride ratio would you target? Just asking because yesterday all the water treatment stuff just clicked (I think) and it seems so much easier than I thought it would be. So of course the calcium chloride would favour maltyness which it sounds like you'll need.

 

[Zephyr259]

I'm glad you've got your head round water chemistry, I was the same, thought it would be a hassle and it isn't. I use Bru'n Water for my additions but it's pretty conservative on how much it increases hardness. I'd be within the Amber Full style which advises 55 ppm sulphate to 65 ppm chloride (0.85 ratio).

Some more googling and a spreadsheet from John Palmer gives ratios from 0.4 - 0.6 as very malty, 0.6 - 0.8 as malty, 0.8 - 1.5 as balanced, lower than 0.4 is too malty and above 1.5 gets into the bitter focus. So with these figures I could go a lot lower. It's handy having soft water in times like these, my starting numbers are 8 ppm SO4 and 17 ppm Cl.

Oh, and brulosophy have a rare significant finding in this area, one of the experimenters found the chloride rich beer (0.33 ratio) to be “really soft, almost as if it’s warmer/flatter” which is a similar effect I got in the wee heavy, my cupboard holds things around 9 - 10c or below if it's cold outside but this beer seemed to warm faster than others.

I've ordered Water by John Palmer as I've read Yeast and am in the middle of Hops so this should also give some assistance.

 

[Drunkula]

I read the brulosophy thing, too, because as soon as I understood it my first thought was split batch and do reversals of the sulphate/chloride ratios, each 3 or 4 to 1. Then I saw the Palmer thing and thought - ahhh, maybe not that malty but then brulosophy did exactly what I was thinking. I'm still going to do it. My water is sulphate 32, chloride 16, calcium 39 so really easy to mess with, too.

Is was good seeing the experiments showing the ratio is the biggest factor, not the ppms. It's like mixing coloured lights to get a different colour but the brightness not mattering. Or paint and amounts. I tend to simplify things into different models to understand, and explain them.

 

[Zephyr259]

I like the analogies. I feel that total hardness will have an effect but maybe only when it's at a high enough level to detract?

 

[ACBEV]

Don't think its all in the water! This might help... with attenuation @ < 50% and mashing over 70c
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/lets-brew-wednesday-1868-william.html

 

[ACBEV]

Forgot to add... shilling ales got a bit darker over the years, mostly with an addition of brewers invert, which added some colour. A tin of Lyles golden syrup (454g) and 25g of Meridian blackstrap molasses would do nicely.

This might be an interesting read... (Has a dilution method calc)
http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert/comment-page-1

 

[ACBEV]

Oh! Another thing... The continental pale malt... If I were brewing the 1868 beer, I'd sub the continental malt for Warminsters mild malt (is a little darker, maltier and sweeter than others)

 

[Zephyr259]

Thanks for the links ACBEV. I've got some of that molasses for the same reason but not used it yet. That's quite the beer on the Perkins blog, 1.044 fg, that's higher than the og of my next bitter.

I have Munich and Vienna already, I guess they'd work instead of a mild malt.

 

[ACBEV]

I have Munich and Vienna already

I think either would be lovely... Stopping the yeast chomping is the next jigsaw piece!

 

[Zephyr259]

I've made 2 beers with Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire, mashing at 65c in a brown porter gave me 80% apparent attenuation, mashing a milk stout at 70c gave 67% if you account for the lactose, which is 53.2% real attenuation and similar to her figures.

I was going to try Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale again, only brewed with it once and mashing at 66c gave a massive 86% apparent attenuation. From speaking to others and doing some reading this strain varies it's attenuation wildly based on mash temps as well as OG. This pale ale started at 1.043 which would match the anecdotal evidence.