Looking for recipe ideas

How about a mild ale? From that stock...MO, 40L & choc malt with some NB hops…should give you plenty of malt character. Just kegged up one that was 6 lbs 2-row, 2 lbs. biscuit malt, 4 oz chocolate rye. I'm a big fan of it as are pretty much everyone whose tried it so far.

 

I'm not going to give you a recipe, just some insight...

English pale ales are simple. Good marris otter malt and no or light use of English crystal malt to the desired OG.

You really should use EKG or Fuggle hops but I wouldn't be afraid to bitter with Northern Brewer and add a late addition of Hallertau. Some of my favorite beers have been english pale ales with some non-traditional hop usage.

Yeast is crucial. Out of the two you mentioned, use Windsor. Nottingham is a great neutral yeast, but lacks the character you want. If you are willing to buy something else, I like S04 for a dry yeast. If you are willing to go with liquid yeast, the world is your oyster.

 

Ditto on the s04 for a dry yeast.
I make a nice ESB using MO, c40, and toasting a pound of the MO. I use NB for bittering, tettnanger/hallertau for flavor, and cascade for finishing. British ale yeast usually.

 

12 lb MO
1 lb roasted barley
1 lb chocolate
1 lb L40 but I would use L:60
1 lb carapills or flaked barley

Mash 152, Sparge 170

I also prefer EKG and or Fuggles but Northern Brewer is fine. Use 1 oz at 60 , 1 oz at 10

Boil 1 hour

for more flavor use the Windsor yeast but notty is fine.

Should make you a good solid brew.

 

Do a SMASH with MO and northern brewer, from what you have on-hand Id use Notty (not a fan of dry Windsor) and Notty will give you a clean profile (though slightly woody), if you pick up yeast Id use Northwest ale WY1332 or WY1968. 1332 will give you a great clean malt profile, while 1968 will give you the classic fullers flavor

 

I prefer Windsor and Nottingham to S04. We all have our differences. Windsor is a little more estery, in a way that I think works for many English beers, Notty is typically clean, but I sometimes get a bit of basement must from it, and S04 is typically clean, but sometimes with a slight doughy aroma that I don't care for. Your ingredients are the making of a brown, porter, or stout, if you want to use the chocolate and or roasted, or an English pale ale if you want to stick to Maris Otter and crystal, possibly with a minor color adjustment with the darker grains. I suggest you try to brew something close to what you did with the Canadian 2-row, subbing Maris Otter for it. This might help you gauge whether the base malt makes the difference. I see nothing wrong with the hops you have for an English ale. We like to thing of Goldings and Fuggles as the quintessential hops for these beers, but we've been told several times by English brewers that they've been importing hops for over a century.

 

THIS!

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=30187

Mash about 156 if you want something chewy for the cold weather ahead. I also did an Imperial batch of this with some pumpkin pie spice. I bumped everything up by about 20% proportionally.

If you're looking to get malty out of your beers there are lots of things you can do. Buying MO is a good step. If you want to get malty with your Can 2 row, you can add biscuit malt to your recipe, you can bump up the percentage of crystal to get caramel, you can add Munich or Vienna malt to your bill. You can also mash higher and use less hops to let the malt come through more predominantly in your beers. Scottish styles are renowned for just passing hops past the boil kettle on brew day.

 

That is most definitely the case during the summer; heat kills liquid yeast. I suppose freezing temperatures would not be too kind for liquid yeast either. Dry yeast is indeed more resilient to travel. There are more and more different strains being made available in dry yeast form over time.

While I am 'here' I would place my vote for brewing an English Ale using the MO (and a bit of crystal malt if desired) and my preferred English dry yeast is Windsor fermented warm (68-70 degrees F) to encourage the production of fruity esters. My suggested hopping schedule is Northern Brewer for bittering and Hallertau for flavor/aroma.

Good luck with your brew.

Cheers!