Thames Toffee

Continuing on a craft brew theme I also decided today to have a go at brewing a traditional English "bitter" beer. The template for my first attempt is a local Henley brew called Breakspear which has been made in Henley on Thames since the 1700's although it recently (2002) moved it's brewery further up into Oxfordshire to Wychwood. It's always been one of my favourites, the "ordinary" as it's known around these parts is a tasty session beer that you can always rely on and is fruitful and malty but only around 3.5% ABV.

The ingredients were a little different from the Chinook IPA described in my previous post; much less grain (therefore less sugar and less alcohol) but also darker (more roasted) grains including some "black malt" which smells just like chocolate! The hops were different too, English varieties like Challenger and East Kent Goldings rather than more exotic American varieties. For this batch I also used a special Thames Valley yeast strain which smelled glorious (nothing like the Thames at low tide!) The brew came out quite dark (as you can see in the photo) and quite flat, nowhere near as lively as previous brews, hopefully the ferment will kick in soon and I'll see some yeast/carbon dioxide bubble action! I decided to call this one "Thames Toffee" since that's exactly what it smelt like as it was boiling, hopefully it will be a tad less sweet than real toffee when it's finished, I'll let you know in a few weeks!