Shepherd Neame Kentish Strong Ale

[ozroger]

I was given a bottle of Shepherd Neame "Kentish Strong Ale", and - Wow! Loved it, and would like to brew something like it.

Does anyone have an AG recipe which might come close? I've brewed lots of ales over the years, both English style and American, but there was a flavour in the SN that I just couldn't isolate.

Any suggestions most welcome.

[MashBag]

I have to say I have tried all the usual places and I cannot find that specific recipe.

However I did spot a pattern (many breweries do)
They do like torrified wheat and malted wheat together.
They use wheat, glucose syrup and goldings hop oil, in all the recipes I found.

Typically 75% pale 8% crystal.

Have you thought about contacting them, I have always found brewers quite amenable.

[IPA]

It's all in the yeast. Brew lab have it. I sent it to them a few years ago.
I have a recipe for their Spitfire and if you brewed that to the required gravity for "Kentish Strong Ale" am certain that it would be very similar.
The yeast sample that I sent to BrewLab came from a 1977 bottle of Silver Jubilee Ale.

[ozroger]

Thanks Mashbag, re contacting the brewery - I'll try that.

And IPA, I've have great success with ales and stouts recently, using an Aussie yeast company called Bluestone, and their "London" ale yeast. Probably close to 1318 - threw some lovely esters in a stout.

I drank one of my British Browns tonight (based on a Northern English Brown) and which scored 40+ in a recent comp here. Comparing that with the Shepherd Neame KSA, there are definite similarities if you can imagine a stronger, slightly sweeter and more caramel and hoppy version. I'll re-read the 2021 BJCP guidelines and see if I can put together an ingredient list which might achieve the characteristics of a British Strong Ale.

It'll be a definite change from the German Pils & Helles I've been brewing lately (in our southern hemisphere winter).

[FUBAR]

It's all in the yeast. Brew lab have it. I sent it to them a few years ago.
I have a recipe for their Spitfire and if you brewed that to the required gravity for "Kentish Strong Ale" am certain that it would be very similar.
The yeast sample that I sent to BrewLab came from a 1977 bottle of Silver Jubilee Ale.

I brewed an IPA using that yeast not long ago ,was one of the best beers I have brewed . Flocculation was terrific and the little bit of yeast left over stuck like the proverbial to the base of the bottles . Would love to see your Spitfire recipe , I think it's a cracking pint although I know many would disagree with me on that one .

[IPA]

It's all in the yeast. Brew lab have it. I sent it to them a few years ago.
I have a recipe for their Spitfire and if you brewed that to the required gravity for "Kentish Strong Ale" am certain that it would be very similar.
The yeast sample that I sent to BrewLab came from a 1977 bottle of Silver Jubilee Ale.

I brewed an IPA using that yeast not long ago ,was one of the best beers I have brewed . Flocculation was terrific and the little bit of yeast left over stuck like the proverbial to the base of the bottles . Would love to see your Spitfire recipe , I think it's a cracking pint although I know many would disagree with me on that one .

Here it is Steve
25 litres @ 83% efficiency
Pale Malt 3750 g
Amber Malt 250g
Crystal Malt 400g
Wheat Malt 200g
Torrefied Wheat 400g

Target 12.45% 30g 90mins
Golding 6.47% 15g 90 mins
Golding 6.47% 10g 15 mins

Ian

[FUBAR]

Thanks Ian .

[PeeBee]

... I'll re-read the 2021 BJCP guidelines and see if I can put together an ingredient list which might achieve the characteristics of a British Strong Ale. ...

You'll do .... WHAT!

Give yourself at least a reasonable chance of coming up with something "British". Ron Pattinson's ramblings are a happy hunting ground (although you won't find "Kentish Strong Ale" - I've looked). He lives in Amsterdam but is British and most of his sources are British. His book "Strong!" (Vol. 2 has the recipes) is a good start. Don't overlook "Mild Ale", before WWI they weren't weak!

https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/

[IPA]

I was given a bottle of Shepherd Neame "Kentish Strong Ale", and - Wow! Loved it, and would like to brew something like it.

Does anyone have an AG recipe which might come close? I've brewed lots of ales over the years, both English style and American, but there was a flavour in the SN that I just couldn't isolate.

Any suggestions most welcome.

Hi Roger
Try this
https://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/1272155
1698 is their "Kentish Strong Ale"

[ozroger]

Thanks Ian - That recipe looks interesting at first glance. Now I'll spend a few minutes converting the amounts to metric and percentages so I can understand it. Lbs ,ounces, points of ounces, and gallons (US or Imperial?) are so cumbersome and difficult for me now. I can't remember when Australia went metric, but thankfully we did!

From what I've read, in general breweries keep recipes as simple as they possibly can, but this one is certainly worth a try for sure. And yes, the 500ml bottle I was given did have 1698 on the label, but I just remembered the "Kentish Strong Ale".

Interesting also is that the 2021 BJCP guidelines now list it as 17A - British Strong Ale.

[PeeBee]

... 1698 is their "Kentish Strong Ale" ...

Ah! So it is. That's why no reference to it in Ron's Blog. "1698" is a fairly recent "commemorative" brew (1698 being the date Shepherd Neame supposedly came into being).

Not much help from Ron's Blog, just a few very weak Shepherd Neame "AK" recipes and a clue that early in 20C. their "strong ale" was probably "KK" (a "Burton Ale"). A bit of historic reading ... https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/sea ... herd+neame.


So, you might have to rely on the babbling of the BJCP. It's not such a bad source of information but people must remind themselves it's a document for American homebrew beer competitions and needs to be taken with a pinch-of-salt outside that environment.

[IPA]

The usage of imperial units drives me mad. America signed the metric conversion act more than fifty years ago and nothing has changed. It's even worse because they are still using imperial units that date back to Queen Anne.
It's a bit like British expats here in France who still use yards on the golf course instead of metres. When given a distance in metres they convert it to yards before selecting a club. Not that surprising really because most of them cannot speak French either.

[ozroger]

Well, this recipe is a strange one! It seems the author is Swedish, based on the water profile, from Orebro.

Now Sweden has been metric since 1889 (except they still use the "Swedish mile = 10km"), so I'm puzzled by the translation of exact metric units into imperial. The water quantity I'm assuming is in US gallons, which equates to 50 litres Batch Size, otherwise in UK gallons, it'd be 60 litres.

So it seems this recipe was translated for the benefit of brewers in the US (or Liberia or Myanmar - the only other two still using largely imperial measurements). But what a kludgy system compared with metric!!!

My version of Beersmith calculates slightly different outcomes in terms of ABV, bitterness, etc, but is close enough.

And Ian, I still find myself occasionally reverting back to the old days when buying, say, a short length of steel at the scrap metal yard for example. I'll ask the young guy in the yard for a piece "about a foot long" - and just get a blank stare in return. And me - I'm about 6' 1 1/2" tall. Buggered if know what that is in cm!

1698 recipe.jpg (156.21 KiB) Viewed 2434 times

[PeeBee]

The author of that Beersmith recipe possibly hasn't changed the defaults in the program's "profiles" or they get converted when uploaded to shared recipes (I don't know, I've never used the recipe sharing facility).

Shepherd Neame was always strict on what went in their beer: All malts, no adjuncts, all Kentish hops. But I believe they are not so strict these days? Even using sugar? They did produce a "KK" ("Burton Ale" ... and despite what you might read in some distorted publications, Burton Ale was pale, the paler the better. Although dark versions using the same name crept in during the WWI/II period).

"1698" seems to be based on their older pale KK recipes.

While that "Shut Up About Barclay Perkins" links fail to turn up any "Shepherd Neame" recipes, there are plenty from other UK brewers like Courage, Truman ... and Barclay Perkins!

[ozroger]

Thanks PeeBee - The BJCP notes concede that "a wide range of interpretations is possible" for style group 17A - British Strong Ale. Among the commercial examples listed are:

• Fuller’s 1845,
  Harvey’s Elizabethan Ale,
  J.W. Lees Moonraker,
  McEwan’s Champion,
  Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome,
  Shepherd Neame 1698

So many to brew, so little time!