Olde Suffolk or Fuller's 1845 Clone Recipes...PLEASE!!!

[homebrewaddict]

Oh my god!

I just tried both Olde Suffolk and Fuller's 1845 and WOW!

I really need a clone recipe for either of these. They are soooo tasty! Therefore, my only choice is to move to England or find a recipe (extract preferably).

So, in the interest of allowing me to keep my job and not spend thousands of dollars, DOES ANYBODY KNOW OF ANY CLONES???!?!?!?

Thanks.

[homebrewaddict]

I have just received a reply from the brewers at Fullers and have been told that the recipe is a closely guarded secret!

Surely with all the experience that abounds here at realbeer.com there must be someone who has had the same thought as me? Isn't there anybody who likes this stuff as much and has a clone recipe, or is that also a closely guarded secret?

SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP!??!

At the very least, let us all go out and buy a bottle and put our collective heads together and figure out what this recipe could be!! What a great way to think/talk/drink beer!!

[danno]

well, 2.5 minutes on google doesn't turn up any recipes, but it does refer to 1845 as an ESB. I'd try any of the reputable homebrew shops, try their ESB kits, and see how it goes... It will be tougher to fine tune an extract recipe than an all grain...

I did notice several people's notes that they used recovered 1845 yeast, that's probably your best bet. I'd make a starter from the yeast, build it up a few times, and use that instead of the yeast in whatever kit you decide on. (warning, plug ahead...) my LHBS is Northern Brewer (http://www.northernbrewer.com) , they are very good about subracting and changing kit ingredients. Step up a real 1845 yeast, and add it to an ESB extract kit...

[toneyc]

Austin Homebrew (http://www.austinhomebrew.com) has a "Special Bitter" recipe that they say is similar to Fuller's London Pride. I'm not sure how closely London Pride resembles 1845, though. I kind of expected Richard to post on this thread already, knowing his affinity towards the 1845.

:)
Toney.

[ray m]

I expected the same thing, ToneyC...Let's stay tuned...

[homebrewaddict]

Well, I have put together a rudimentary recipe, although I'm not very good at picking out the subtle flavors in these beers, so that is why I am polling everyone. Here is what I have so far...

4 lbs Light LME
4 lbs Light DME
.5 lb Brown Sugar
.5 lb Crystal Malt (60L)
.25 lb Chocolate Malt (350L)

1 oz. Bullion @ 60 min.
1 oz. Bullion @ 20 min.
1 oz. Kent Goldings @ 10 min.

This recipe should have a O.G. around 1.067 and a SRM of 15 with 24.6 HBUs. Now the yeast that I would use would either be the yeast from the bottle of 1845 (best case) or ... haven't really thought about that yet.

The OG is a tad high for the style (Old Ale) which is what 1845 is listed under in the BJCP guidelines. Like I said, I haven't the faintest of what other adjuncts might be added to this beer to make it so delicious.

ISN'T THERE ANY OTHER 1845 LOVERS WHO CAN HELP???

[homebrewaddict]

Well, I did some more research and found that 1845 is brewed with Amber malt. Soooo...I changed the above recipe a tad to account for this.

7.5 lb Amber DME

Same Hops as above.

Anybody comment on any additional adjuncts?? The grains before were mainly for coloring...

...jeez...help me please! :(

[Richard English]

Most brewers, including Fuller's, guard their recipes jealously and I'm not surprised that you can't find an 1845 recipe. Don't forget that the water used will also affect the taste of the beer. I don't believe in fact, that Fullers use any adjuncts in 1845 so any recipe that contains other than malt, hops, yeast and water will probaly not be accurate.

London Pride is an excellent beer but better in draught form than in bottle. It is weaker and less full-bodied than 1845 and so better for a session. It is not bottle-conditioned so you wouldn't be able to harvest any yeast.

I have to say that I wouldn't bother to try to clone 1845 when I can get the real thing so easily. And, of course, so can you in the USA. Indeed, if my information is accurate, much of the population of Chicago now drinks nothing else!

[homebrewaddict]

I agree that it is fairly easy to get. However, at roughly $4.00 a bottle, I'd rather be able to clone 2 cases for ~$20 - 30 than pay $96.00 for a case!

I've been posting this question everywhere! Hopefully someone has thought of the same thing and has some info for me...otherwise, I will keep you all updated.

[fuji6100]

There are several recipies that attempt to clone Fuller's brews listed on the cat's meow 3 page found here

http://www.brewery.org/brewery/cm3/recs/index.html

I don't know if they have the exact one you are looking for, but maybe that's a start.

Good luck!

[homebrewaddict]

I have checked those, but they are mostly for either the ESB or London Pride. Neither of which I have tried nor can find near me, so I don't know how close they taste.

It's frustrating when such a good beer has no attempts made to clone it! :D

[YamahaXS]

send me a case, HomebrewAddict and I will run it through my beer analyzer.

:D

[Richard English]

All Fuller's beers are excellent and the ESB is probably slightly closer to the 1845, being of higher gravity than London Pride. It does not have the same intensity of flavour, though.

You should be able to get Fuller's beers quite easily since they seem to have a good network of US distributors. Check their site at http://www.fullers.co.uk/.

[homebrewaddict]

Again, it is not the difficulty of getting them that is the irritation behind my wanting to clone 1845. It is the price. Why pay that much when cloning it is so much cheaper?!

[homebrewaddict]

Alright. I've finally gotten one step closer to getting the recipe down. From "The Homebrewer's Recipe Database," I was able to find out some key information. Now I just need some help from the all-grain folk in helping me translate it to extract! :D

O.G.: 1062
Malt Bill: Alexis and Chariot Pale Malt, Crystal Malt, Amber Malt
Hops: Goldings
Late Hops: Goldings
IBU: 50

Can anybody help out at all?!

Thanks.

[homebrewaddict]

Well, I finally got around to brewing my 1845 clone last night and it is happily fermenting away as I type this. The final recipe I ended up using was:

6 lbs of Muntons Light DME
1 lb of Crystal 90 L
1 lb of Amber 30 L
3 oz of Kent Goldings (5.9 %) for 60 min.
.5 oz of Kent Goldings (5.9 %) for 30 min.
.5 oz of Kent Goldings (5.9 %) for 10 min.

Hopefully it should come out well. Even if it doesn't come out exactly right this time, I'm sure it will be an excellent brew. Anyway, I'll let you all know how it turns out.

[denver brewhoo]

Wonder what yeast you used? I might try an all grain version but I don't think I can get the Alexis and Chariot Pale, will probably use the Baird Maris Otter that my LHBS stocks....I'm thinking instead of 3 oz of the EKG for bittering, may do 1 1/2 and split the other 1 1/2 between the flavor and aroma hops...think I'll go around 11 lbs of the pale given my historic [in]efficiencies...thanks homebrewaddict for doing this work.

Unless I hear from you I think I'll use the White Labs 002 or 007, maybe 013...

[homebrewaddict]

Well, not being a big fan of liquid yeast cultures as of yet, I am still using dry yeast. For this I simply used Coopers Ale yeast. Ideally I would use the London Ale yeast supplied by Wyeast or even more ideally culture the yeast from the bottle.

As for the hops, aside from being a malt head (yes people, there is such a thing as too much hops!) I mainly used them for bittering because that is more closely linked to the type of beer that 1845 is.

[homebrewaddict]

Just took a hydrometer reading and a taste of my beer. The initial taste is okay. It's hard to tell anything yet as it is still pretty yeasty. Definite taste of alcohol which is good. It fermented down to 1.012 which calcs out to about 6.5%, so a little more than 1845.

The Coopers Ale yeast seems to have done a fair job. There is some fruitiness which is true to the original. Also, the amount of hops were perfect.

One note though, the coloring is waaaay off. I was shooting for around 14 SRM, but this is going to be way too light. Next time I will go for 18-20 to get that deep red color of the actual 1845.

Laters.

[homebrewaddict]

Well, after waiting for about two weeks with it in the bottle, I finally broke down and tried one last night. For only being in the bottle such a short time, it tasted excellent. Initial impression is that it is very close to the 1845 beer. Will definitly have to do a side by side comparison in the future once the home version has aged a bit. The color is definitly off, too light, but that is no problem, probably could fix that by using darker crystal next time.

The cooper's yeast also did a wonderful job of fermenting the wort. I am definitly going to make this beer again!