Recipe: 1851 William Younger XXX Mild Ale | Craft Beer & Brewing
Anyone ever try something like this?
My yearly Barleywine is coming up and I’m thinking about it.
Maris Otter
Pilgrim (because it’s my English go-to hops)
WLP028
Shoot for about 8-9% ABV and 90-100 IBU’s. I might boil down some of the wort to a syrup and add it back to the main boil to try and create some extra malty depth and darker color. I’m not sure I’d get to the color in the picture with Maris Otter alone though. Maybe.
Pretty close to that. Do it, you won’t be sorry.
Yup, my typical English Barleywine is a crapton of Maris Otter or Chevalier or some other good English Pale malt with a modicum of hops.
Nice! It shall be done.
I do love Barleywine brew day, even if I’m glad there is only one per year. Lots of extra work. I have 5 vintages in the cellar, each a slight variation on the previous year’s. I’m very much looking forward to comparing an all (Crisp) Maris Otter version to the others, which had pinches of this and that, everything added for seemingly good reasons at the time. I have no complaints with past versions, just very curious as to how a Smash Barleywine will play. I think my biggest concern is the color. Will an all MO Barleywine look the part?
I believe you mentioned that you will boil down some of the wort. That should help darken the beer to what extent I don’t know. I look forward to hearing about the beer. IMHO you can not go wrong with an all Maris Otter barleywine
Thanks. I’ll definitely make some syrup out of the wort, maybe even extend the boil to 90 minutes or so as well. But I still think that the picture of the beer in the link in the OP is just some pretty stock photo they had laying around. I find it hard to believe that that picture is MO alone. Really, it’s just color so how important can it be? Though we do have a tendency to taste with our eyes first.
I’ll be brewing this in about a month or so and probably won’t taste any until next fall. Hope you are patient. 
I brewed this today, boiling down about a quart into syrup. Hoping for upper 90’s, I picked up a few extra gravity points that I wasn’t expecting. That sample had a very toffee forward flavor. It’s in the hands of 028 now.
Bottled this today. Finished at 1.028, almost 74% attenuation, just north of 10% ABV. Color ended up around 7-8 SRM.
Now the hard part. 
Your FG is just.01 lower than my anticipated OG
Took a sample of one of these today after about 2 months post packaging and was blown away by the flavor. This has some wonderful toffee and marmalade flavors, nice bitterness, a touch of alcohol warmth.
But the carbonation sucks.
This is my 6th BW and the first that has had carbonation issues. All have followed the same procedure: bottled from the fermenter with carb drops. And this is the 3rd or 4th fermented with 028. Never an issue before.
I’ve ordered some CBC-1 to help me through. I need this beer to not just survive, but last 10 years.
Just throwing an idea out there… what about dropping a little brett into each bottle and let the brettanomyces work on the sugars and finish carbonating the beer. All aged beers brewed in Britain in 1851 would naturally have brett in them, and it looks like this is a clone of a William Younger beer from 1851. Just something to consider. Cheers.
Interesting idea. Do I have the nerve?
Any Brett that you would recommend? I’ve never messed with it before.
This is the strain that was discovered in British Old Ales.
WLP645 Brettanomyces claussenii | White Labs WLP645 Brettanomyces claussenii | White Labs
You might find it from other yeast suppliers.
Thanks for that.
I’m thinking though that I’m going to need a dry yeast to try and kick start the fermentation in the remaining bottles. Pop the tops off, sprinkle in a smidge of yeast, recap. With my skills, measuring the appropriate amount of liquid would be a bit difficult. Maybe a syringe? But even at that, am I to assume the liquid is perfectly mixed and each dose contains the same amount of cells?
I once had an Imperial Stout that didn’t carbonate in the bottle with the main yeast. A little CBC-1 took care of it. I’m not completely opposed to Brett though. Maybe I can dose half with CBC and half with Brett, just to compare. 
I like the dried yeast approach better. Maybe do 1/4 of the bottles now. Check your originals in 2-4 months along with the newly pitched with dry yeast and see where you are at.
Personally not a fan of Brett
I’d be scared to add Brett to bottles with that much gravity left. That’s a lot of potential CO₂.
