RON THROWS US A GEM: 1867 INDIA PORTER!

[beer today]

popped into my local micro today, to pick up some pale malt, he has never heard of mild malt, and was quite intrigued. However he did provide a sack of Halycon for 20 dabs so all is good, hoping to brew Thursday.

[beer today]

I am having a crack at this today, well something similar based on this recipe. I have made a couple of assumptions though, no doubt erroneous.
Pale ale malt in the 1800's was not as pale as today's malts and that the brown malt made in my oven would not have the characteristic "kilned over burning wood Aroma or flavour". In light of theses musings I have adjusted the recipe as follows.

#62 ExPorter

4KG Mild ale malt
1kg Pale Crystal
1kg Home Roasted Brown
250g Black Malt
75g Beech Smoked malt

They may just bring the beer closer to the original brew.

so for my 10 gallon batch, does this sound right ?
8kg pale (Halcyon)
2kg pale crystal
2kg brown
500g black
i wont be sourcing smoked malt

140g Goldings 5% at 90 mins
112g Goldings 5% at 60 mins

yeast WLP005

I cant quite get my head around the maths of it all, just kinda extrapolated from others.

cheers
bt

[beer today]

i think its the amount of black malt, that seems like alot ?

[seymour]

i think its the amount of black malt, that seems like alot ?

If you simply double Ron's 5 gallon recipe, you'd need 454 g Black Malt. Also, if you have a small barbeque grill, it's very easy to drop some wet wood on the coals to smoke your own small quantity of malt...

[barney]

The smoked malt hasn't come through into the beer at all, it like it wasn't even in there.

[beer today]

thanks guys, i have downloaded beer engine and the colour shows as 170 EBC ?
anyhow brewing Thursday, so nice to have some time to prep for a change .
cheers

[beer today]

fernented nicely, bottled 34, and a 19l cornie, smells fantastic, malty, roasted, coffee ish, chocolate ish, awesome, I fear the cornie's chance of remaining untouched is looking unlikely. Great brew.

[seymour]

Good work, Mate. It certainly sounds delicious.

[louiscowdroy]

This is big.

Every once in awhile, I stumble upon some brand new information (to me) which really blows my mind, alters my whole understanding of beer history, inspires creativity, and renews my excitement about homebrewing. This is one of those times, and full credit goes to Ron Pattinson (patto1ro on these forums), of the excellent "Shut Up About Barclay Perkins" blog and book series.

I recently learned that he collaborated with an American craft brewery to reproduce an historic India Porter. That's kinda cool. Good for them. Too bad they don't distribute…

(beat)

Wait…WHAT!? India Porter? That's a thing? You mean us arrogant bastards didn't recently invent "Brown IPA" or "Black IPA" or whatever we wanna call it?! Well, as usual, our English forefathers beat us to it. Like 158 years ago, while we were busy killing each other with bayonets and sh!t. It turns out there really is nothing new under the sun.

http://www.oldbeers.com/1855eip/
http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2012/05 ... red-beers/
http://www.prettythingsbeertoday.com/wp ... pattinson/

Do yourself a favor and read Ron's whole background story, but here are some particularly interesting nuggets:

We’ve all heard the romantic tale of beer being shipped half way around the world to quench the thirst of the British in India: the birth of IPA. But Pale Ale wasn’t the only beer sent to India: In fact, it wasn’t even a majority of the beer sent. That honour belongs to beer that’s been lost to history: India Porter…

…Why have we only ever heard of IPA and not India Porter? It’s all to do with who drank the beers. IPA was the tipple for officers, officials and bureaucrats. Porter was the drink of the ordinary soldiers. Like so much of British history, it’s all about class: It was the middle and upper classes who wrote about their experiences in India, so as far as anyone knew (or cared), IPA was the beer consumed. No-one really cared about the tales of the enlisted men….

Well, I care. A lot. I'm all about Big Brown Beers of the people, for the people, and I know you guys are too. Now us hop-heads are vindicated: we're allowed to taste and smell some hops in true-to-style dark ales, too. Any bets on who'll get the credit in BJCP guidelines? I digress...

So dig this: I asked Ron if he'd share the recipe, and he did. Understandably, this isn't the exact 1855 recipe he worked out for Pretty Things Beers, but it's an equally authentic recipe from 1867. What a guy, right?!

Power to the people!

1867 Barclay Perkins East India Porter

ALL-MALT GRAINBILL:
64.15% = 8.50 lb = 3.86 kg, Pale Malt
16.98% = 2.25 lb = 1.02 kg, Crystal Malt 60°L
15.09% = 2 lb = 907 g, Brown Malt
3.77% = .5 lb = 227 g, Black Malt

MASH at 152º F/66.7ºC
SPARGE at 168º F/75.6ºC
BOIL 90 minutes

HOPS:
2.5 oz = 70.9 g, Goldings, 90 min
2 oz = 56.7 g, Goldings, 60 min

FERMENT AT 65ºF/18.3ºC

STATS (assuming apparent attenuation 70.91%):
OG: 1055
FG: 1016
ABV: 5.16%
IBU: 68
COLOUR: 30ºSRM/59ºEBC

Seymour you are my saving grace to all mankind...... "Power to the People" was my fathers shouting cry when we were trying to mount a working class fight in 1983 to oust the Conservatives out.....well done with your investigation and long live the Britsih Tomy and his Porter !!!

[seymour]

Thanks for the note, Louis. But the investigative work is all Ron Pattinson's, I just stumbled upon it and had to share. Cheers!

[barney]

Rons Porter is Sublime at three months old, What a Magnificent beer!

[djavet]

I brew this recipe 3 years ago. A blast! Will put it to my brew list for the next months. So goooood.

[seymour]

Pardon the poor image quality, but I just had to boast about finally meeting Ron Pattinson in person at a St. Louis book tour event. Then yesterday, I guided he and Stan Hieronymus around Civil Life Brewing Company. Having them drink my beers while talking shop for a couple hours was definitely a professional high point!

P.S. I highly recommend his latest book about Scotland brewing history.

[Dennis King]

He did a lecture at last years homebrew festival. Very approachable. After his talk stayed on, drank a few beers and joined in festival. Nice man.

[Sadfield]

I concur, great bloke. He did his first run of his current Macbeth Scottish Ales tour at our homebrew club.

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