Home Brew Forum

I love stuff like this and I've not even drunk the original

Goulders wrote: 2. Finish at 1013/13.5

I may be wrong but this might be what they cask the beer at so technically it isn't finished as it will continue in cask to clear up after itself and create condition, probably nearer to 1.010 by the time it is served. This is an educated guess though, did he clarify that?

I'm brewing with him on Tuesday so I will ask him

Goulders wrote:I'm brewing with him on Tuesday so I will ask him

If you can find out HOW they get the 37 EBC colour that would be great. I got some Dark Crystal yesterday as boosting the black malt impacted flavour too much

I'm also interested in the gales beers and theres some great tips here. I was also told the SG was 1.052.
Also this arrived today to help things along:

I am following this with interest but am confused. I thought the original was about Gales GB, but we are now talking about HSB?

Anyway, my tuppence worth. I have been living in South Hampshire since 2001. My local was a Gale's pub (now Fullers ). I worked there for some years with a very experienced landlord. Before the demise of Gales, the beer was very variable. I guess this was due to years of under-investment at the brewery. It was very frustrating. HSB was a big seller, and on form was nectar.
After the Fullers take over (and with a new landlord) we, as a pub, went to the Fullers brewery on a tour. They were very dismissive of Gales beers, and the HSB in particular. Couldn't understand why we weren't overnight London Pride enthusiasts.
The chap doing the tour basically said that HSB was a basic brew (LP? ESB?) then for colouring and to make it sweet (as straw-chewing yokels, we likes our beer sweet, roit?) they added two enormous buckets of dark caramel to the kettle. I did see the plastic containers in question but did not see the process, so cannot confirm or deny the tale. I only know what I was told. I have been on a few brewery tours so I am quite aware that BS is rife in the trade

Blast Fullers and their ilk. HSB is undeniably more consistent now, but nothing like its former self.

Well fullers used to use caramel too so it's a bit rich of that guy to slag it off

Are you sure it wasn't invert sugar, a perfectly respectable "adjunct" known as malt substitute. When I think of the classic English Bitters, beers that define our tradition a lot, if not most would have used it. Either as a response to, greed, taxation or War. Turned out nice again. (one for the Old Folks)

Well brewed my competition winning brew today.
Gales (and indeed Malcolm himself does now) racked at 1/2 degree above FG.
HSB and the bitters used light crystal (70L?). Colour came from black malt (~1%-1.5%)

Hanglow wrote:Well fullers used to use caramel too so it's a bit rich of that guy to slag it off

So do Harveys. Seems to be fairly widespread use.

Fullers do not use caramel anymore, at least for Fullers beers according to an interview Keeling did on the brewing network, although apparently they used to.

So what is the caramel they used to use and is it commercially available?

You miss the point. Gales didn't use caramel. Fullers used to use it for London Pride etc a few years ago. If you want to use it you can get it at homebrew shops, eg