Drom John Fuller's Vintage Ale 2009 Clone

[DromJohn]

All-grain
Batch size: 5.25 gallons

155F (45 min)
18 lb Tipple (Munton's)
12 oz 60L (Munton's)
45 minute steep 155F

60 minute boil
2 oz East Kent Golding (60 min)
1 lb Dark Muscovado sugar
2 oz East Kent Golding (15 min)
2 oz East Kent Golding (5 min)

Lallemand London ESB
2 weeks primary

3 weeks bottle conditions

First taste: 3 October 2020

SWMBO's choice after a vertical tasting of five Vintage Ales; 2 ok, 2 pretty good, and one worth trying to clone.

This is my first all-grain recipe because I wanted Tipple to dominate, and my partial something norm would have made it mostly Maris Otter. It took 3 batches to do all-grain, breaking my record of 2.

First time buying from Home Brew Ohio, the only U.S. store I found that had home brew quantities of Tipple.

I sent my recipe by webform to Fuller's. They responded with the recipe in percentages. I stayed with mine because the full lb/oz were very close to their percentages. I was surprised by the IPA level of hops.

 

[kevin58]

Could you share the info Fullers sent you?

 

[DromJohn]

John,


Thank you for your email regarding the 2009 VA. A couple of points that may hopefully help.

1. I am not sure what 60L ( Muntons) is? We used 96.5% pale ale malt and 3.5% crystal and no sugar but you may need it to get the gravity up.
2. Hops were all Goldings
3. We would have fermented for 5-7 days then moved to warm ( 6-10C) maturation for 7-8 weeks then cold store ( -1.5C) for 1 week prior to filtering and bottling. We add yeast prior to bottling, target level is 1mill cells/ml
4. Below is the target specs for the beer;

OG – 1086.8
PG - 1019.5
Alc - 8.5%
Col – 37 ebc
BU - 40

Hope this helps,

All the best,

Guy Stewart
Brewing manager

 

[kevin58]

The part about not knowing what 60L Muntons is odd. Then they don't tell you what lovibond crystal. I suppose you can play around with different one until you get the EBC they list. Thank you.

 

[GuldTuborg]

Well, Lovibond is not a commonly used measure in Europe. I'd wager a medium to dark crystal (80-120L) in a recipe like this, but really that's just a guess.

 

[madscientist451]

You got to love the sparse ingredient list, pale malt, a touch of crystal and goldings hops.
Just shows that you don't need a complicated recipe to make a good beer.
Disclaimer: I've never had the above beer so I don't actually know how good it is.
I suppose if someone wants to clone it it must be pretty good.

 

[GuldTuborg]

This beer is stupid good. If you like barleywines or strong English ales in general, you owe it to yourself to seek one out.

 

[Bramling Cross]

It is pretty good.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Appreciate y'all posting in this thread. Adding to my "to brew" list.

BTW, do I assume correctly that because it's Fullers, then WLP002 or equivalent yeast should be pitched.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Personally I'd avoid the likes of WLP002 and 1968 if you're trying to clone a Fuller's beer, given the easy availability of yeast that are much closer to the oranginess of the real Fuller's yeast, either harvested from 1845/Lancer/IPA or the likes of Imperial Pub.

 

[kmarkstevens]

As always, appreciate N Brewer chiming in. To clarify, when I wrote WLP002 or equivalent, I actually meant Pub. For what it's worth I've done multiple yeast offs, and every time in a blind triangle test my palate prefers Pub. Unclear if Pub is considered the equivalent of WLP002 or a very close brethern as the FG is tiny bit different according to brewing calculators.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

As always, appreciate N Brewer chiming in. To clarify, when I wrote WLP002 or equivalent, I actually meant Pub. For what it's worth I've done multiple yeast offs, and every time in a blind triangle test my palate prefers Pub. Unclear if Pub is considered the equivalent of WLP002 or a very close brethern as the FG is tiny bit different according to brewing calculators.

Don't sweat the "official" brewing stats, each company uses a different set of standard brewing conditions to assess their yeasts, so the exact same strain would show up differently in the White Labs standard wort/temperature versus the Imperial one.

If you take it back to the alleged source of all these strains, the Fuller's yeast is notorious for its orange marmalade flavours. I've not tried it but Pub is meant to have some of that same character, whereas WLP002 and 1968 don't.

Therefore, given that it's easy enough to harvest Fuller's yeast from their bottle-conditioned beers that are widely available, it's plausible that Pub is a Fuller's isolate.

Whereas 1968 and WLP002 don't behave like the current Fuller's yeast. So one has to conclude that either they did come from Fuller's but the oranginess mutated out somewhere between Chiswick and the freezers at WL and Wyeast, or they were just isolates of ordinary Whitbread yeast that somehow got labelled as coming from Fuller's.

So I wouldn't worry whether Pub is the equivalent of WLP002/1968, I'd worry more why WLP002/1968 aren't the equivalent of the real Fuller's yeast.

 

[kmarkstevens]

As always, very interesting links! Head Brewer Georgina Young said: One constant of all the ales is the secret ‘house yeast’. ‘It has a very orange-y, marmalade-y flavour,’ says George. ‘It’s easy to pick up in ESB

The link to the fuller's website reveals two house yeasts: Fuller’s yeast gives orange citrus, and toffee flavours to the beer (marmalade notes at discernible at higher A.B.V.), whereas Gales yeast tends to bring a soft fruit flavour to the fermentations, with red berry fruits coming through.

On the calendar now is to brew a higher ABV with Pub and First Gold to see if I can pick up marmalade. Any recipe recommendations? (I swear my palate may not be very enlightened).

Oddly enough, I've never brewed a WLP002 or Pub at more than maybe a 4% ABV. In fact, when I first started on lower ABV beers I didn't even know what a "session" beer was. I played with a brewing calculator and in a light bulb moment discovered different yeasts had different attenuation. And after looking at dozens of yeasts, saw that WLP002 is probably the lowest attenuating yeast out there. And soon after I discovered this sub 1.030 thread, which led down the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins rabbit hole, and a whole new world of English and other session beer brewing opened up.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

The link to the fuller's website reveals two house yeasts: Fuller’s yeast gives orange citrus, and toffee flavours to the beer (marmalade notes at discernible at higher A.B.V.), whereas Gales yeast tends to bring a soft fruit flavour to the fermentations, with red berry fruits coming through.

Although they hardly use the Gales yeast these days. It ended up at Marble in Manchester and Hale's in Seattle, among others, but in the same way I don't get orange from WLP002, I'm not sure I particularly get berries from WLP041, although it's a nice yeast.

On the calendar now is to brew a higher ABV with Pub and First Gold to see if I can pick up marmalade. Any recipe recommendations? (I swear my palate may not be very enlightened).

From all accounts you can get the orange in Pub at "best" strength, so you don't need to go crazy, and it's certainly easy to get orange from FG so you don't need anything particularly complicated - English pale, just a little crystal and your hops and yeast.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Cool. Thanks NB.
BTW, I came up with this half batch to showcase marmalade flavors
Maris 3.5#
Torrified Barley 4oz
Invert #2 8oz
First Gold 15gr 40 minutes/15gr 5 minutes/15gr flame out and a slow cool off
Pub big pitch