Bring Your Daughter to the Porter

By Lee Immins

BJCP 2021 Style 13C English Porter

The most awarded home brew beer in LAB history, and as far as we can tell - in the whole of the UK too.

This recipe is Lee's favourite amber malt version with roast malts added at at the end of the mash to reduce any harshness or/astringency. Previous versions have the roast malts included in the mash and worked out fine.

An interesting substitution is to use Brown malt instead of Amber (weight for weight) or a mixture of Amber and Brown. Using Amber and/or brown is considered the key factor in this beer -dont skip! Because these malts take a while to meld, it is suggested to age this beer for a several months before drinking.

This beer works well as base for experimenting. Lee has tried oak-ageing, experimenting with different sugars, brett-ageing or as a basis for a smoked porter. It doesnt seem to matter what you do it, this beer almost always places in competition!

You can also see Lee's presentation on this beer here: Bring Your Porter

Awards

Black Friday 2015 (UBrew London, 11/2015)

1st - Table

3rd - Best in Show

London and South East Craft Brewing Competition (UBrew London, 05/2015)

3rd - Table

UK National Homebrewing Competition, 2016 (Bristol 2016)

1st - Table

Black Friday 2016 (UBrew London, 11/2016)

3rd - Table

Brew Con World Series I (Oval Space London, 11/2017)

2nd - Table

Hertford Brewing Club #1 The English Sessions (Hertford, 16/4/2018)

1st - Table 7: Porter and Brown Ale

1st - Best in Show

Welsh National 2018 (Tiny Rebel Newport, 9/2018)

1st - Table 6: Brown Ale & Porter

London Amateur Brewers Annual Club Trophy 2021 (Three Hills Outpost London, 2/8/2021)

1st - Champion

Measures

• IBU 38
• ABV 5.5%
• OG 1.061
• FG 1.018
• EBC 60

Ingredients

Water

London Water

Or aim for pH 5.45 mash, sulphate to chloride ratio 0.7

Or absolute ion values (ppm:) : C1 187 CL2 145, SO4 101

Malt

• Pale, 3 EBC, 71.3%
• Amber, 50 EBC, 12.5%
• Crystal, 150 EBC, 4.4%
• Crystal Rye (Thomas Fawcett), 175 EBC, 3.1%
• Dextrin/Cara-Pils, 2 EBC, 2.5%

Added at end of mash:

• Pale chocolate, 500 EBC, 3.1%
• Chocolate, 1000 EBC, 1.3%
• Black, 1280 EBC, 1.9%

Hops

• 1.2g/litre Fuggles or Goldings at 15 minutes for flavour
• bittering hops at 60 minutes to 38 IBU. I've mainly used English hops but recently switched to Colombus.

Example

For a 40 litre boil, 36 litres at end of boil:

40g Goldings pellets 4.8%aa at 15 mins

30g Colombus pellets 14.2%aa at 60 minutes

Yeast

West Yorkshire Ale (Wyeast 1469) is my go to yeast, but any British Yeast is worth trying, Pacific Ale has worked well too

Process

Mash

• 60 minutes at 68C
• 15 minutes at 72C (for head retention)
• 10 minutes at 76C (mash out)

Boil

60 minute boil

Ferment

• Ferment fairly cool - say 18C
• Raise a few degrees near the end of fermentation to drive attenuation