Hull Brewery Bitter - a misspent youth

[Radders]

Hi,

I'm returning to home brewing after an absence of ~25 years. I've used kits and all grain techniques in the past, so I'm not too worried about recipe formulations.
However to celebrate my return to brewing I would like to reclaim a part of my mispent youth by attemting a clone brew for Hull Brewery Bitter. Now this hasn't been brewed for over 30 years I believe, so would any of you brewmasters out there have any idea of a starter formulation? Or should I just drown my sorrows with a Dave Line recipe?

TIA

Bob

[Reg]

Welcome Bob,

The thing to do is to look for a recipe and then start doing some comparative taste work.

Working with mini batches helps and saves on ingredients!

Reg

[Graham]

A good place to start would be Ringwood Bitter. Peter Austin was head brewer at Hull Brewery until it closed and he then set up Ringwood Brewery. Ringwood yeast originated from Hull brewery and certainly his first Ringwood recipes were based directly on the Hull Brewery grist. Whether the Ringwood recipe has changed in the meantime I do not know, but I doubt it; it is a fairly "standard" grist. You might like to procure a pint of Ringwood cask beer and give it a taste, if you have not already done so. My guess is that it would not be that dissimilar.

[Radders]

Thanks for this - somewhere to start at least.

One question - is the Wyeast Ringwood yeast the same as used by the Ringwood Brewery?

thanks

Bob

[Radders]

I've found the answer to the Wyeat question in last year's summer 2007 newsletter - Wyeast 1187 is the Ringwood yeast.

posting my own replies now - is this a good trend?

Bob

[Doug]

As someone who also used to to live and sup in Hull many moons ago, correct me if wrong the Brewery was near Hull Theater? Apart from a nostalia trip to the Trog Bar Romeo & Juliettes and the Star of the West (Now pulled down as I believe) why waste your time?

Here's the recipe for 5 gallon of Hull Brewery Bitter (1x soiled tramps garment closer to the crotch area the better) soak in 5 Gallons of River Hull unfilitered water taken from as close to Croda Chemical plant as possible (naturally sourced). Ferment with yeast taken from same said tramp for that Hull Brewery autenticity.

Thanks for the post and good luck on your quest, you just sent my mind reeling back over 25 years to the day of the Dorchester cinema and Bali High Night Club.

Doug

[seymour]

Sounds like a fun project. Here are a couple leads:

The Hull Brewery was bought by Mansfield Brewery in 1985, which then sold to Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries in 1999, now part of Marstons. Presumably, the historical brewery logs were part of each transaction. It's a long shot, but you could email a research request to Marstons, appealing to a sense of cultural heritage, mentioning your purpose is home-brewing and definitely "non-compete", etc...

Also, Peter Austin, the Hull brewmaster went on to form Ringwood Brewery, so you could try contacting them for historical Hull recipes. Marstons now owns Ringwood outright too, right? If so, another reason an email to Marstons might work...

However, it might all be "much ado about nothing." The Hull recipes I've seen are very traditional, no big mystery: Maris Otter with a bit of chocolate malt and sometimes black malt, with Fuggles and Goldings hops. It's likely Mr. Austin carried the Hull yeast to Ringwood, which is available as Wyeast 1187 and White Labs WLP005. So, with that info, and your accumulated knowledge of English brewing practice, I'm sure you can get very close to an authentic Hull ale.

Good luck!
-Seymour