80 Shilling Days

I'm brewing it today, even as I write. Well, I've done the hard part, Clive & Strings are busy cleaning up after me.

Everyone drinks hoppy, pale ales these days, and who can blame them? It is a fine and refreshing beer style after all, and the breadth of different sub-styles within the genre is enough to keep anyone interested for, well, quite a long time. However, and I dare not utter this out loud, I'm bored of them, bored bored bored bored bored. So it is with enthusiastic gusto that I'm brewing the very antithesis to IPA - Scottish Export, or 80 /- (shilling) ale.

This one is all about malt, and lots of it. Crystal malt provides a nutty, sweet red background, chocolate malt brings, well, a touch of silky smooth chocolate. Oats for smooth, wholesome goodness; melanoidin for sweet aroma & some amber to dry the palate, lest the sweetness becomes cloying. Oh, and, of course, a minute twist of heavily, heavenly Bruichladdich peated malt to drag us up onto Rannoch Moor once again.

I put a few hops in too, just for balance, and nothing else.

It's cold and damp outside, warm & cosy in. These days are not IPA days, these days are 80/- days.

Year in Beer 2010 - 80 Shilling Ale

New look pump clips will be a feature of 2010

This year's 'Year in Beer', to be published pretty soon (already done - ed), tells me we're featuring '80 Shilling Ale' throughout January and February and, since late December in the brewery is likely to be a little unsettled (I'm installing and commissioning a total of 140 hectolitres of fermentation space - phase I of GADDS' great expanding girth), I thought I'd best stay ahead of the curve and get the first batch brewed tomorrow.

So I'm sat thinking about Rannoch Moor and sweet, mellow, heady ale (a fairly one dimensional view of Scotland I'll grant you, but it does things for me). I delved through the malt store for a half kilo of the most peated malt on earth (180 ppm) and crushed it up, the resulting aroma one of sweet smokey malt and wild, weather beaten peat. Perfect for a little background atmosphere. I'm using some crystal malt for its colour and distinctive sweet flavour, oats for their general northerliness, aroma, and enriching property, chocolate malt for colour and smoothness, melanoidin malt for aroma and some amber malt for a juxtaposing drying character and toastiness.

As for hops, well, not too many; 80 shilling isn't really about hops. They're there, and they're classic British (Fuggles and Goldings), but they're far from dominant, though the Fuggles will add some smooth grassiness to flavour and aroma.

Come January, expect the kind of ale capable of driving the dampness from your bones, warming you through with its very wholesomeness and leaving you happy and ruddy faced. A fireside ale, one to drink with haggis (quorn) and something to chase a little Islay malt with. The kind of ale winter was designed for.

Apologies for the blatant re-run of this post but there is sound reason: as you can tell, I brew our irregulars two to three weeks (sometimes more) ahead of your chance to find them in Quality East Kent Outlets and it occurred to me that there's no point in telling you about them early. In the future (and it *is* ours, all of ours) I'll write about the brewing when I do the brewing and post-date publication until you can do the drinking - subsequent posts in this category will therefore make more sense, both grammatically and chronologically .

(BTW - 80 Shilling Ale was a clear favourite at the GADDS' family New Years' Eve party last night, even out doing O's Vodka Cocktails and dodgy fizzy fermented grape juice)

2010 Year in Beer - 80 Shilling Ale

New look pump clips will be a feature of 2010

Next year's 'Year in Beer', to be published pretty soon, tells me we're featuring '80 Shilling Ale' throughout January and February and, since late December in the brewery is likely to be a little unsettled (I'm installing and commissioning a total of 140 hectolitres of fermentation space - phase I of GADDS' great expanding girth), I thought I'd best stay ahead of the curve and get the first batch brewed tomorrow.

So I'm sat thinking about Rannoch Moor and sweet, mellow, heady ale (a fairly one dimensional view of Scotland I'll grant you, but it does things for me). I delved through the malt store for a half kilo of the most peated malt on earth (180 ppm) and crushed it up, the resulting aroma one of sweet smokey malt and wild, weather beaten peat. Perfect for a little background atmosphere. I'm using some crystal malt for its colour and distinctive sweet flavour, oats for their general northerliness, aroma and enriching property, chocolate malt for colour and smoothness, melanoidin malt for aroma and some amber malt for a juxtaposing drying character and toastiness.

As for hops, well, not too many; 80 shilling isn't really about hops. They're there, and they're classic British (Fuggles and Goldings), but they're far from dominant, though the Fuggles will add some smooth grassiness to flavour and aroma.

Come January, expect the kind of ale capable of driving the dampness from your bones, warming you through with its very wholesomeness and leaving you happy and ruddy faced. A fireside ale, one to drink with haggis (quorn) and something to chase a little Islay malt with. The kind of ale winter was designed for.

The 2009 Bimonthly Series - Jan/Feb - '80 shilling ale'

It's Homecoming Year and there's a decidedly Scots edge to some of my brewing in January-February. I kicked it all off a couple of weeks ago by brewing an 'export' style ale, full of malty sweetness with a smidge of underlying hoppy goodness. Wanting all those wonderful flavours that my maltster creates, without overdoing some of the more the demanding ones, and, of course, keeping the 'traditional' butterscotch notes to an acceptable minimum (not my favourite beer atribute) kept me focused in the design and delivery of the beer.


It's already out in a couple of pubs, with more set to recieve deliveries when we go back to work next week, and since it is available for two months, you all ought to get a good chance to try it. Failing that, ring us at the brewery and we'll do our best to ensure you get what you want.

When you do get your hands on a pint of this deep brown coloured ale, and as you slurp back the first mouthful, close your eyes and remember Rannoch Moor.