All British Pale Recipes Need Biscuit/Victory

[Lerxst]

Yes, it's your beer and you can brew it any way you want with whatever ingredients and as far out of style as you choose but lets discuss brewing British pale beers and the homebrewer tendency to throw biscuit or victory in every recipe.

I guess people read the BJCP descriptions or the "biscuity bready" adjectives in some broad discussion on the style and in turn interpret that as all British style pale recipes require biscuit or victory. Glance around the internet and it seems every homebrewer that tackles pale English beers throws biscuit in...even though most of the best known commercial examples don't use it. Course, many of the actual commercial examples aren't available to most homebrewers to use as a reference point.

Yeast esters and flavor from your base malt get you the genuine flavors of the actual beers that defined this style. Sugar? Historically British brewers employed brewing sugars in many recipes before the market placed importance on "all malt" beers. Look up the recipes for some of the most well known commercial examples in these styles and you'll see they are deceptively simple. Check out the actual recipes from the brewery logs on Ron Pattinson's site and you're not going to find much of any biscuit.

Daniels mentions this in Designing Great Beers under the Bitters and Pale Ales section:

Various character grains such as toasted, Victory, biscuit, aromatic, Munich, and Vienna malts appeared in a number of recipes. Although not found in the commercial examples, these grains add complexity and character to these recipes that may help propel them into the second round

There's definitely a place for a light use of biscuit/Victory if you want to brew to actual style and you're using cleaner yeast or less malty base malt.

[shrekfx]

I've been seen that too. I think the big issue is not everyone has access to British two row which I think has a more nutty biscuit taste so they think if they add that it helps to get that flavor. But thats what I read anyways.

[Lerxst]

I've been seen that too. I think the big issue is not everyone has access to British two row which I think has a more nutty biscuit taste so they think if they add that it helps to get that flavor. But thats what I read anyways.

That's kinda the point...when you taste the actual beers (or MO compared to standard two row), they really aren't all that biscuity or so pronounced so any adjustment to compensate for plain old 2 row should be slight.

[darknova306]

I used to think biscuit was critical in bitters, but I've been liking my bitters more and more since I started just getting the bready flavor from Maris Otter. It's all about balance to me, and any extra bready flavor beyond Maris Otter is unnecessary to me. People love hard rules and classification guidelines, but should be careful not to be too rigid about following them.

[Rhoobarb]

I can't remember the last time I used biscuit malt and have never used Briess Victory malt, which is just their version of biscuit. I'm lucky in that I can get Golden Promise at nearly the same price as domestic 2-row, so I use it most of the time. Love that grain. IMO, that (or MO, Optic, Halcyon or other British base malts) will give you enough biscuity flavor.

[shrekfx]

I just brewed a recipe today from BYO that is a Northern English brown and it called for both MO and victory. So far I really like MO. I've made different batches from Scottish ales to an IPA. Also a pumpkin ale and a wheat beer with it. We'll see how those turn out, but I like the flav the base malt gives.

[zoebisch01]

I can't remember the last time I used biscuit malt and have never used Briess Victory malt

I use it in my American Nutbrown and it's really nice. My ESB is pretty much Optic a little crystal and some dark malt for color. The flavor rocks with some Fuggles in there, fermented with an English Ale yeast. I haven't made it in a long time, but I need to. It's an awesome style imho.

[Steve Urquell]

I use it in my American Nutbrown and it's really nice. My ESB is pretty much Optic a little crystal and some dark malt for color. The flavor rocks with some Fuggles in there, fermented with an English Ale yeast. I haven't made it in a long time, but I need to. It's an awesome style imho.

Post it. I really need a good ESB recipe.

[zoebisch01]

Post it. I really need a good ESB recipe.

It'll be in a pretty boring format. I'll post it when I can dig it up out of my laptop.

[Steve Urquell]

Cool.

[Lerxst]

Just to follow up on the concept I started in this thread, I think that a take-away message would be that the grist for traditional recipes for British Bitters/Pale & mild ales is base malt & brewing sugars while contemporary recipes include crystal and the use of small quantities of dark malts for color adjustments.

Biscuit, carapils, special B, etc. are really confined to homebrewed interpretations of the style (which unfortunately the BJCP guidelines & perception seem to unintentionally support)

Yes, you can brew your beer however you want but IMHO when you talk about brewing a British style pale/bitter/mild it's worth understanding the essence of the beer before departing into a different interpretation.

[elkdog]

Just to follow up on the concept I started in this thread, I think that a take-away message would be that the grist for traditional recipes for British Bitters/Pale & mild ales is base malt & brewing sugars while contemporary recipes include crystal and the use of small quantities of dark malts for color adjustments.

Biscuit, carapils, special B, etc. are really confined to homebrewed interpretations of the style (which unfortunately the BJCP guidelines & perception seem to unintentionally support)

Yes, you can brew your beer however you want but IMHO when you talk about brewing a British style pale/bitter/mild it's worth understanding the essence of the beer before departing into a different interpretation.

I'm drinking an ESB that is 80% MO, 10% British Crystal (getting the British stuff makes a big difference), and 10% Demerara. Nothing fancy, but really, really good. Bitters are my main brewing focus these days, and biscuit/victory don't really help them, imo. Simple malt bill, balanced bittering, and a controlled fermentation (the tricky part) are all you need.

[Chad]

If you read the article Fullers: The Pride of London (http://www.byo.com/component/resource/article/2398-fuller-s-the-pride-of-london), they agree. Their grist consists solely of 95% British pale malt and 5% 75L crystal. Interestingly they make their ESB, London Pride, Golden Pride and Chiswick Bitter from the same mash. They parti-gyle and blend the first and second runnings in various proportions to make each beer. Really interesting article.

[Steve Urquell]

If you read the article Fullers: The Pride of London (http://www.byo.com/component/resource/article/2398-fuller-s-the-pride-of-london), they agree. Their grist consists solely of 95% British pale malt and 5% 75L crystal. Interestingly they make their ESB, London Pride, Golden Pride and Chiswick Bitter from the same mash. They parti-gyle and blend the first and second runnings in various proportions to make each beer. Really interesting article.

Just about to brew the Fuller's London Porter recipe in BYO--C75, Brown malt, English pale ale, choc malt. No biscuit in sight.

[vtchuck]

IMHO, the Victory/Biscuit are a good addition if you are not using UK malt as your base malt.

[elkdog]

Fair enough- I did use victory for a good SB when I brewed extract and couldn't get MO extract. I guess you don't need UK pale malt and Victory/Biscuit.

[Lerxst]

IMHO, the Victory/Biscuit are a good addition if you are not using UK malt as your base malt.


That's kinda the point...when you taste the actual beers (or MO compared to standard two row), they really aren't all that biscuity or so pronounced so any adjustment to compensate for plain old 2 row should be slight.

I commented on this before...and I agree, somewhat. Taste the genuine articles and you don't get big biscuity flavors. But look at the majority of recipes created by homebrewers and the quantities of biscuit/victory pushes far forward into the flavor profile. IMO people seem to get all tripped up on that BJCP description and think they need to have a signature biscuit malt influence in the beer to be authentic....but that's anything but authentic.