Does anybody out there in forumland have a clone recipe for Fullers London Pride? I love this beer very much, but can only drink it from time to time because of the price :'(. Any help would be much appreciated.
I brewed this a couple years ago and loved it. If I made it again I’d switch to WLP002, but the S-04 tasted great at the time. Come to think of it…I may make this again soon!
London Calling
1.043-1.011
30 ibus
5.5 gallon batch
7# British Pale (MO)
1# Simpson’s British Crystal 75L
1/2# Demerara (or any light brown sugar)
1/2oz Target for 60 min
3/4oz Northdown for the last 10 minutes
S-04 dry yeast fermented in low sixties for 2 weeks
Fuller’s has such a unique style of brewing that I think it’s very hard to emulate their products truly, but maybe I just think that because the ESB always eludes me. This LP is pretty close, tho.
I think you can add the sugar whenever you like on this one. I think I dissolved it in a little pot and then added it to the kettle in liquid form with 10 minutes left in the boil.
I’ve got an extract one here, and can look up an all-grain version when I get back to the book (CAMRA’s Brew Your Own British Real Ale, which has plenty more besides)
If you Google it you will get quite a few hits. It all comes down to which recipe you trust. Lots of different suggestions for which Crystal malt and how muich of it to use… Here is another one…
There’s no need to speculate, there’s no dark crystal or sugar in the current Fuller’s partigyle, they’ve tweeted a photo of their actual brewbook :
Burtonise, 7.2% light crystal, splash of chocolate malt and you’re good to go. Later in that thread someone has worked out a detailed recipe for ESB, which he claims is close.
As always with British recipes yeast is crucial. WLP002 and 1968 don’t have the typical marmalade character of the real Fuller’s yeast, apparently Imperial Pub does - or harvest it from bottles of 1845 or IPA/Lancer.
It’s not often that you get to compare the actual recipe with other sources that attempt to clone the beer - it’s a good test to compare how close your favourite source of clone recipes is.
I’ve been making ESB and London Pride for a couple of years now. The recipe I used comes from an interview I heard with John Keeling who at the time was the head brewer at Fullers. It differs slightly from the brew log sheet posted in the Twitter posts shared on Homebrewtalk.com but the recipe has evolved and changed over time. Either that or John wasn’t telling the interviewer the full truth.
Mr. Keeling stated: 95% pale ale malt and 5% crystal 150. Without re-reading the HBT thread again I believe the hops were the same… Target for bittering, and late additions of Northdown, Challenger (and Golding for dry hopping in ESB). He said 80% of the bitterness comes from the Target and the remaining 20% from the late additions. According to the interview ESB was around 43 IBU and LP 31 IBU.
I’ve been brewing it this way ever since I heard that interview several years ago but my most recent version, in the fermenter right now, uses the grist from the HBT forum which adds just a bit of chocolate malt. Can’t wait to see how it differs.
I’m scouring the notes I made during the interview trying to find out what yeast he said but either he didn’t or I didn’t write it down. Like Northern_Brewer said I’ve been using Imperial Pub A09 with good results.
The guy doing the interview was Neil Spake. Got to know him judging NHC in Austin, he ran first round when it was there. Talking at ABGB year or two later he said some thing about the interview. I said that was you? It was.
Nah, John’s a Mancunian, he tells you it straight. But recipes evolve, depending on the availability of ingredients, fashion, and changing tastes - don’t forget the ultimate aim is to sell as much beer as possible, and there’s been a general move away from the really cloying, crystal-heavy styles of late. Back when they were winning lots of big prizes in the 80s there were a bunch of adjuncts - in that HBT thread is the recipe for their recreation of John’s first partigyle to give you a comparison - having had the recreation of the 80s one against the current version, it’s better now.
Of course he didn’t need to say what yeast they use - like any traditional brewery they have a house strain (which is used to bottle-condition 1845 and IPA/Lancer if you want to harvest it)
im looking to dial in my english standard bitters in the future.
any consensus on the crystal colour?
i always had in my mind -small amount of high LOV crystal (120+) and to add sweet flavours but keep it dry.
the actual fullers recipe photo though says “LIGHT CRYSTAL” specifically.
interesting, any preferences? im thinking im going to follow the recipe, as ive had bad experiences with higher lovibond crystal more than good to be honest.
