Wee Heavy. Give me your best!

If you happen to have the book Clone Brews there is a recipe for the authors' creation of Old Jock. I've brewed the extract version, and it was very tasty. I also infused it with a bourbon and oak chip elixir, and that worked out well too.

 

I brewed this recipe with some very minimal tweaks and aged it a bourbon barrel. It turned out very nice, I still have some aging about a year later. I pull one out and drink it from time to time. If you wanna get wild and crazy you can put some on Vietnamese coffee, I mixed the wee heavy barrel up with my breakfast stout barrel and transferred a few gallons on coffee on accident. It turned out really nice, my buddy bugs me from time to time to brew it again.

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/02/bourbon-barrel-wee-heavy.html

 

I recently brewed Jamil's BYO version
https://byo.com/english-scottish-strong-ale/item/2890-strong-scotch-ale-style-profile

Bumped it up to 6gal into the fermenter. Overshot the gravity a tad at 1.113. I have 3gal planning to age on Cognac soaked french oak cubes before bottling.

 

I never said that the brewer didn't use a long boil, simply that there are no grounds for believing that Scotch Ale should have a long boil. I't his supposed connection which is a fabrication.

 

They do a 2 hour boil here. Are they stylistically accurate in your opinion cuz they've been doing it since the 1700's
http://www.traquair.co.uk/how-beer-brewed

 

A two hour boil is pretty common in our breweries; it's exactly what I used in my homebrewing days.The received wisdom is that low gravity beers benefit from a longer boil that stronger ones.

 

Who cares? What defines a beer is the appearance, aroma and flavor. Ingredients and process are just a means to an end, and getting hung up on them is just missing the forest for the trees.

 

People trying to brew historic ales, or people entering BJCP competitions, or those interested in brewing to a specific style.

Most people, really.

 

I dunno, seems like the folks entering comps or brewing to a specific style are gonna be more about the ends than the means.

I brew some stuff with a basis in history here and there, but I tend to think more about what I want a beer to end up tasting like rather than trying to utilize a specific process. When it comes to historic stuff, even then, things are up to a good amount of guess work, due to the ingredients available today versus what was available 150 years ago (see @ryane http://ryanbrews.blogspot.com/2009/06/rustic-saison.html) The obvious exception is when I want to find out what a step in brewing will lend to the final beer.

 

It matters to me when people totally misrepresent Scottish brewing and beers.
No doubt as an American you are rightly proud of what you brew over there.You would be quite annoyed if all the time you read "American beer is pale yellow tasteless overcarbonated and served cold"
Yet this description fits US brewing much more accurately than what you read about Scotland and its brewing.It does at least describe much of what is brewed there.

 

So do you have any recommendations on how to create something accurate? I really liked the traquair house Scotch Ale but I also liked the Americanized version @psnydez86 and I had. So we're looking for recommendations and we'll figure out what we wanna brew based on everyone's input

 

There are BJCP style guidelines specific to ingredients and amounts. If you're entering, say, a Hefe into a competition and you've only got 20% wheat you're going to be docked...the same would occur if using the wrong yeast.

My point was that ingredients and process are of concern, and marquis wasn't saying anything to warrant some of the responses.

 

I totally agree that those are of concern, so long as you end up with the goal you were trying to achieve. In regards to this thread and marquis, psyndez86 has a specific goal in mind, utilizing a specific technique, and marquis' only feedback was that he would be historically inaccurate, which was not what was asked for.

 

I can agree with that.

 

You know what is historically accurate? Brewing with gummy worms and lemon drops. Don't take my word though, you'll find it easy enough in the literature.

 

I think that's a brewdogs recipe

 

Historical accuracy is quite a sticky idea as over a long period beers (even sold as the same thing) change out of all recognition.Like IPA and mild, neither of which have much in common with their forebears.
Ron has published authentic recipes for Scotch Ale which are pale and with sky high IBUs.
Scotch Ale (called simply Strong Ale in Scotland) is generally regarded as the Scottish version of Burton Ale.The fact remains though that Scottish brewing records do not support the idea of long boils at any time or for any style.Simply put, it was never a Scots practice.

I'm not for a minute suggesting that homebrewers shouldn't caramelise their wort and I'm sure the result is an excellent brew.

 

Wait a minute! I thought "Scotch" Ale received it's name from the man who originally brewed it, Richard Drew, who also happened invent the first waterproof, see-through, pressure-sensitive tape, which would later become known as "Scotch" tape? The brandname "Scotch" came about while Richard Drew was testing his first masking tape to determine how much adhesive he needed to add. A bodyshop painter became frustrated with the sample masking tape and exclaimed, "Take this tape back to those "Scotch" bosses of yours and tell them to put more adhesive on it!. Well apparently ole Richard was quite happy to use that name in everyday aspects of his life as well, including as a name for his homebrewed 6 hour boiled, 1 month lagered strong ale consisting of English pale malts.

 

this is fantastic hahahaha