ESB Comparison
Mine is on the left; the real thing on the right.
Colour - I should have used identical glasses, but very close to my eye. Fuller's is maybe fractionally redder and brighter.
Carbonation & Mouthfeel - Surprisingly not much difference in carbonation. Fuller's has a bit more but it's not over the top as many bottled ales seem to be these days. The real deal is also a tad more crisp, which may be carbonation again or possibly water profile - I went more chloride as this seems to work better for me in general, whereas I know Fuller's go more sulphate.
Aroma & Flavour - It's all there in mine but more muted. In the real Fuller's everything is simply turned up louder! (I'm not sure water profile alone is enough to explain all of the difference).
I would struggle to say for absolute certain how much of the flavour is driven by the hops versus the yeast, though my gut feeling is a good deal of it is down to the yeast.
Mine is slightly less bitter so I wonder if part of the difference is less hop flavour overall. I think the proportions of the hops are right, perhaps just not enough of them.
Similarly my version also has that Fuller's-ey marmalade-ey toffee-ey vibe you get from 1845 and Golden Pride (and ESB!), just not loud enough (I think this aspect might be more yeast-driven).
Overall - I'm pleased, I've made a decent beer I can be proud of. But there's no question, Fuller's do it better!
Other thoughts:
- I fermented mine closed but I wonder about open fermentation.
In a 2008 blog post about the Griffin Brewery Ron Pattinson notes,
"Initially, the conicals were used for keg and bottled beer and the open fermenters for cask. But when they experimented with cask beer in the conicals, they immediately won Champion Beer of Britain at the GBBF. So they swapped the cask to the conicals and the keg to the open fermenters."
I don't know what the story is today, whether Fuller's still use open fermentation at all. It would be interesting to pop down to the local Fuller's pub and see how their cask ESB tastes.
- Another thought is fermentation temperature profile - I followed the Fuller's profile described by the brewer in the original "Can You Brew It" podcast (I can't remember not if it was Keeling or Prentice) but perhaps something different is needed at the homebrew scale.
- It could also be that Wyeast 1968 isn't
exactly equal to the Fuller's strain, though I'd say it's certainly very close (in any case I really like it, it has so much character). Perhaps I'd see a difference from repitching, or by culturing up the yeast from a bottle of 1845.
