historical differences between pale malts?

The only Scottish Pale malt I know of is Golden Promise. Agreeing with what you said, I do not see it as meaningfully different if blended with MO.

 

I find Golden Promise to be pretty distinct from MO. YMMV

You may find this helpful:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/2-r...-promise-vs-halcyon-vs-pearl-vs-optic-439642/

 

Minor technical point, think they want to say pale ale malt, not pale malt. Also not sure why they would have three different base malts in there...but agree with previous posters. Golden Promise mixed with like an MO or Pearl should produce a great beer...but heck so will a beer with just GP, MO or Pearl. Anyway...would stick with the pale ale malts, not pale malts and I probably wouldn't even bother putting in the continental unless you have it on hand.

 

MO and GP are relatively recent varieties and are probably unlike 19th century barley. Fuller's used Plumage Archer which dates back to 1903 in their Past Masters range (here's an extract from one of Ron Pattinson's books) http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KbjXAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=plumage archer fullers&source=bl&ots=bJ6N9rSdks&sig=c0XEiSlsfQqiXMDsduBwDscR9U8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=o-GxUvCsMq-A7Qbx1YHgCQ&ved=0CGsQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=plumage archer fullers&f=false
Recently Chevallier has been rescussitated;this was a popular 19th century malting barley

http://zythophile.wordpress.com/tag/chevallier-barley/

 

There is an article in the Oct. 2013 BYO magazine entitled Historical Homebrew: The Story of Hammersmith Ales by Michael Madaus. The article is about Christopher Bowen and how he brews 18th & 19th century beers.

An extract from the article: “When obtaining malt for a 200 year old recipe, for example, Bowen chooses Thomas Fawcett, a company that has operated on the same site in Castleford, England, since 1809. “In creating a beer from 1810, you want to get malt from a company that was around and making it during that time, Bowen explained”.

I wish I had contact information on Christopher Bowen. All I know is that he lives in Bethlehem, PA and is an avid beer historian and homebrewer. Based upon the article I am 100% confident that he would be happy to help you brew your mid-1800s beer. His passion for his hobby really comes through in this article.

Cheers!

P.S. Maybe there is a way to contact the author (Michael Madaus) through the BYO website and he can connect you with Christopher Bowen?

 

Contact Betsy Parks (current editor) at BYO. [email protected] is one of the generic emails that should reach her. Explain politely why you want to contact the author. She'll most likely contact the author and either pass your question along or (with the author's permission) provide you with the author's contact info.

 

I made an old school IPA recently (still in primary) influenced by the Mitch Steele book. It used a lb. of EKG for 10 gallons, 70 IBU. For malt it had 10 lbs of Crisp MO, 5 lb pearl, and 10 lb of Simpsons Golden Promise. There is a distinct difference between the TF GP and the Simpson GP, as those are 3.5L and 2L respectively. The Simpson GP was used as he talked of using some Pils malt with MO to get something like the old white malt that was used.

For the continental pale ale malt try a Belgian Pale ale malt, or Weyermann Pale ale malt.

 

I wonder if low colour MO would be better than the normal stuff as like hopfenunmaltz says the white malt was lighter in colour. It's a great base for hoppy golden ales at least

 

This makes me think I should start getting this magazine again. I stopped because it felt like there was too much overlap between this and Zymurgy, and that they both seem to retread a lot of turf. But now I find wishing Zymurgy showed up more frequently in my mailbox. Maybe I'll Xmas gift me a new BYO subscription.

 

Was just thumbing through this again last night, thinking that I ought to base some 2014 beers on recipes in here. Let me know if you have favorites that you tried. Seem to remember you did one of the Ballantine recipes.

 

I used a recipe that I found on the web, that my friend Jeff Renner had a discussion on. The beer was really good, and Jeff and club members said it was, at a club meeting. One of the guys who is a very good brewer asked for the recipe, and I sent it to him. He made it and won the IPA category at the competition our club runs each year. Y
The beer was based on this discussion. Used Bullion for first addition. Have Brewers Gold now for the next time I brew it. It gets better with age, and I plan on dry hopping after aging next time.
http://www.beerandloafing.org/hbd/fetch.php?id=87506

The Fatheads Headhunter recipe made a really good modern IPA.

 

Fawcett's are excellent maltsters (my local brewer won't use anything else) but for the life of me I can't see why the fact it has been around since 1809 makes it a better source of historic malt.Have they still got their old drum kilns (such as Fuller's used in their recreations) and more importantly , have they access to historic barley strains?

 

My memory doesn’t always ‘click’ at the same time.

A person you should contact with you questions is Bob Grossman. He gave a presentation at the 2013 NHC entitled: Colonial Brewing Practices and Beers with the Influences of Historical British Styles.

Bob is a VERY accomplished homebrewer and at the presentation he provided samples of 6 historical beers he brewed: Sage Ale, Parsnip,Pumpkin, & Walnut Ale, 1750 Porter, George Washington’s Small Beer, Benjamin Franklin’s Spruce Beer, and Master Webb’s Braggot. All 6 of the beers were tasty and well brewed; my favorite was the 1750 Porter. He brewed all of these beers with present day ingredients (e.g., present day malts and present day yeasts). He did make his own Essentia Bina (Essentia Bina is made from sugar boiled until thick and syrupy and black and extremely bitter) to make the 1750 Porter.

Bob Grossman is an enthusiastic beer historian. He brought in as a ‘show & tell’ part of his presentation a BIG stack of historical books that he owns and you would have thought you were at a farmer’s market with the amount of sage, parsnip and other ingredients that he grew in his garden (and that he brews with). He offered his garden good to the audience to take home with them.

The last chart of the presentation provided contact information: [email protected]

I strongly encourage you to contact Bob and discuss your beer making. It would not surprise me that Bob will provide you with his phone number and that you would have hours long conversations about historical brewing.

Bob is a wealth of information and he is very generous in sharing what he has learned over the years.

Cheers!

 

I would think the main difference would be consistency, mostly in the form of moisture content and modification (other than the obvious genetic differences with modern hybrid malts)

Just guessing

 

There's a very good reason for using multiple base malts: to even out the differences between different batches of malt. If you used just one then changed to another, there could be a big change in the flavour of the beer. Buy never changing more than a third of the malt, you don't have that problem. They did the same thing with hops.