When I started brewing last June I decided to try a Scottish 60/- first, as it is a very mild easy drinking session beer, and doesn’t have any strong flavors to cover up my sins. Also.. I love scottish and scotch ales and was curious what a Scottish 60/- tasted like since there aren’t any commercial examples in the US.
I started out with the recipe from Jamil’s Podcast.
Scottish 60-1: Followed recipe, using extract
Was very astringent until I cold conditioned it for 18 days, then it was very tasty.
Scottish 60-2: Same, but did a mini-mash for the munich malt after learning that is necessary. Without a mash the Munich won’t convert, and you’ll get starches in your beer. The starches can’t be eaten by the yeasties, but any bacteria that found there way into your beer will love them. That and it’ll be hazy.
Also switched from the stove to an outdoor burner, so I did the same recipe again since the equipment had changed and I wanted to minimize the variables that I needed to consider when comparing the beers.
Scottish 60-3: Same, but all grain.
This one took 1st in the Scottish Ale category at local competition
Tasting notes:
Score #1: 32/50
Aroma: 8/12
nice dark malt aromatics from malt
Appearance: 2/3
Good head and color/clarity
Flavor: 13/20
Hop bitter balance a bit high for style. Use of high kiln mlts is appropriate but is masked by hop bitter
Mouthfeel: 3/5
Moderate attenuation is good for this style
Overall: 6/10
Overall a good beer but bitterness hurt it a bit
Score #2
Aroma: 10/12
Nice low malt aroma & grainy smoky edge but good low level overall
Appearance: 2/3
Deep gold orange edge, good head, etc
Flavor: 11/20
Sweet malty start with a tea like tannic astringence & a good long roasty edge. Same smoky notes and tart phenolic sourness also
Mouthfeel: 4/5
Very light and a bit nutty. chewy. good level for the style
Overall: 6/10
Very nice effort on this but some things are off balance, reducing score
Scottish 80-1: Same recipe as the 60/-, but moved from 4 lbs of Maris Otter to 7.5 lbs, and minus 2ounce C120. The reduction in C120 was because the first batch of 60/- was dominated by C120 after aging for 5 months or so.
Scottish 80-2: Same, but increase pale choc from 2ounce to 4ounce to go for more of an earthy flavor.
This batch was fermented in two carboys, one with WL Cal Ale, one with WL Edinburgh.
The one fermented with Edinburgh was very interesting, and seemed to accentuate the roast and it was a bit more estery. Preferred the Cal Ale one though, as it tasted far cleaner.
Scottish 80-3: back to original C120, Pale choc now 5 ounce, now with 6 ounce flaked oats
Very tasty, beautiful mouthfeel, but got dinged in competition for too much roast. Oats were added for some chewy mouthfeel to emulate the mouthfeel of beers I had in Scotland. The C120 is back to normal now because I missed that flavor.
Scotch Ale-1: Same, but boosted base malt a lot, and scaled hops to maintain BU:GU.
The first taste I had of it struck me as being similar to Luden’s Cherry Lozenges… not at all cough syrupy, but it had some fake cherry flavors in there. Disappointing, but I’m letting it age for awhile to see what it does.
Scottish 80-4: Same as previous 80/-, but scaled up to 10gallon batch (shiny new kettle).
Fermented one carboy with 2 fresh vials White Labs Cal Ale, the other with Wyeast 1056 Activator. Neither had a starter this time.
The Wyeast batch formed a krausen fairly early, and came out wonderfully - it was a big hit at a friend's St Patty’s party.
The White Labs batch didn’t do as well… it had a longish lag time, and only attentuated down to 1020. Also tasted fairly astringent oddly. Perhaps some buggies were active before the yeast colony established, or maybe that one had more sediment from the kettle?
My next Scottish 80/- is going to drop the pale chocolate down to avoid over-roasty flavors, and swap the flaked oats for flaked barley. The flaked barley is to emulate what they do with the english bitters, to give it a chewier mouthfeel.
And the next Scotch ale is going to go traditional with 99% pale, 1% roast barley, and an extended boil to emulate Traquair’s method.
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