Berghem Beamish

Classification: stout, sweet stout, all-grain

Source: Fredrik Stahl (fredriks@abel.math.umu.se), HBD Issue #2001, 4/3/96

I recently brewed a Beamish clone based on a recipe by Graham Wheeler.
The result is somewhat like Beamish but there is still some difference. It has some nice roastiness with some chocolate, which seems to be right on, but is a bit too sweet. It also has some fruity tones that I would like to eliminate. Some ideas for improvement:
* change to cleaner and more attenuative yeast. Maybe YeastLab's Irish yeast is better?
* ferment at lower temperature (17-18C).
The hop aroma is far too strong, and the beer could need more of a "clean bite". I guess I will boil the last hop addition a bit longer, maybe for 30 min. or so.

I chose to do a step mash at 40-60-70 to control the fermentability of the wort. The rest at 40C could well be shortened to 15 min., and if you cannot do a step mash, use single infusion at about 63C to get high fermentability. (If I remember correctly Graham Wheeler states that Beamish has OG 39, FG 9.5 and IBU 40.)

Ingredients: (for 22 litres)

2.85 kg pale malt
160 g chocolate malt
400 g roasted barley
400 g wheat malt (!)
200 g white sugar (in kettle)
23 g Northern Brewer, pellets, 6.3% AA @ 120 min
25 g Fuggles, leaf, 5% AA @ 120 min.
11 g Fuggles, leaf, 5% AA @ 15 min.
Salts: 3.6 g CaCO3, 0.5 g CaCl2, 1.3 g CaSO4 and 0.3 g NaCl.
WYeast #1084 Irish

Procedure:

Step mash 30 min @ 43C, 45 min @ 60C, 15 min @ 70C and 15 min @ 77C.

Total boil time: 120 min.

Fermented with WYeast #1084 Irish at 19.5C. Open fermentation in primary for 5 days and closed in secondary for 8 days.

Specifics:

OG: 1.041
FG: 1.011