[unclebrazzie]

Peepz,

I'm trying to puzzle together how Thornbridge brews their amazing Bracia.
So far, I get mostly sketchy outlines, but what I have is this:

ABV: 10.00%
IBU: Unknown
OG: Unknown
FG: Unknown
Malt Type(s): Marris Otter, Brown, Dark Crystal, Black, Chocolate, Peated and Roasted Barley
Hop Type(s): Target, Pioneer, Hallertau, and Sorachi Ace
Yeast Type: Unknown
Special Additives: Chestnut Honey

Trying to cook up a recipe brings me to an initial rough draft of this:

53% Marris Otter
10% Brown
10% Dark Crystal
2% Black
2% Chocolate
10% Peated
2% Roasted Barley
11% Chestnut honey (added 2 days into primary)

Yields 1.095 witout the honey and 1.109 with.
Ideally step mash:
30' @ 63°C
40' @ 72°C
mashout at 78°C

(hops based on other 10% complex stoutish honey brews, could be waaaay off though)
80 IBU of Target (60')
20 IBU of Pioneer (60')
10 IBU of Hallerthau (15')
10 IBU of Sorachi Ace (15')

90' boil, if not longer.

Neutral but UK yeast, capable of munching away through all that.

Whatcha think?

[hopfenundmalz]

As a pleated malt hater, I must ask if you are sure 10% is appropriate? This is a beer that I have never had, so it might have a high amount of peat.

[majorvices]

2% peated malt is plenty enough to ruin you beer already. I'd back it down to that at least.

[unclebrazzie]

Recipe's based on Bracia's own label, plus the Thornbridge website, both of which list peated malt.
I've also borrowed some ideas from the recipe of De Molen's Hemel&Aarde, which can be found in Mikkeller's Book of Beer and which lists a whole s***load of peated malt.

Realising what a polarising ingredient peated malt is, let's -for argument's sake- pretend I'm backing down on the peat. Which I'm not.
With that pretense in the back of your minds, is there anything else you'd change about the recipe?

Seriously: what is it with AHA and peat? 

[homoeccentricus]

Seriously: what is it with AHA and peat? 

Lots of us have ancestors that crawled out of a bog near Drumnadrochit, went West, and swore never to have anything to do with peat or its derivatives ever, ever, EVER again.

[unclebrazzie]

What? You mean you all boil your worts on wood-stoked fires instead of using gas?
You'all so hardcore y'all make me cry.

Also: many of us. Not lots. Unless AHA members come wholesale. Not saying they don't, just saying is all.

[homoeccentricus]

Also: many of us. Not lots. Unless AHA members come wholesale. Not saying they don't, just saying is all.

"lots of us" has 15M hits on Google. Enough for lots of us to deem this expression acceptable.

[unclebrazzie]

So, lots of you have anything on Bracia?

[hopfenundmalz]

It is your beer, use all the peat you want.

You ask what we thought, and we told you. 

Does the beer taste of highly phenolic smoke? Simpsons, I think it is them, makes two grades of pleated malt, high and low phenolic specs. The low is still too much for me.

[unclebrazzie]

Menno, who brews Hemel&Aarde on which I based the impy-stout angle of the recipe, advises to use the strongest peated malt available. Granted, he's a peat-head, who even advises going 100% peat in some particular cases, but I reckon if it's good enough for him, it'll be good enough for me.

Bracia is a difficult beer all by itself. It's got a lot going, from heather, to honey, to peaty/burnt flavours, yet remaining delicate and majestic, like most of Thornbridge's brews. I reckon it's big and complex enough to carry the high dose of peat.

I've used lightly peated (Belgian) malt before, which was so lightly peated it doesn't even register on my palate. Now that may be due to my palate being saturated with bitumen, but I've not had any complaints from casual tasters, one of them being Da Missus, who detests most peated drinks I offer her.

I'll probably use a stronger peat malt for this one; somewhere around 25ppm.

[hopfenundmalz]

Menno, who brews Hemel&Aarde on which I based the impy-stout angle of the recipe, advises to use the strongest peated malt available. Granted, he's a peat-head, who even advises going 100% peat in some particular cases, but I reckon if it's good enough for him, it'll be good enough for me.

Bracia is a difficult beer all by itself. It's got a lot going, from heather, to honey, to peaty/burnt flavours, yet remaining delicate and majestic, like most of Thornbridge's brews. I reckon it's big and complex enough to carry the high dose of peat.

I've used lightly peated (Belgian) malt before, which was so lightly peated it doesn't even register on my palate. Now that may be due to my palate being saturated with bitumen, but I've not had any complaints from casual tasters, one of them being Da Missus, who detests most peated drinks I offer her.

I'll probably use a stronger peat malt for this one; somewhere around 25ppm.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Sounds like you should go for the peat.

She doesn't like pleated malt, is your Mrs an AHA member? 

[homoeccentricus]

"Pleated malt". Love the expression!

[hopfenundmalz]

"Pleated malt". Love the expression!

My typin and autocorrect lead to some strange things.

[unclebrazzie]

Frankensteining this one.

I eventually brewed this recipe:

For 20 liters of OG 1112 beer
Pale                  49,3 %         5,000 kg                                                                   
Cara-aroma 2       9,9 %          1,000 kg                                                                   
Aroma 150           9,9 %          1,000 kg                                                                 
Rookmout             9,9 %          1,000 kg                                                             
Chocolademout     6,9 %          0,700 kg                                                                       
Honing                9,4 %          0,950 kg                                                           
Zwartemout         4,9 %          0,500 kg   

(No peat. I chickened out eventually, plus I'd run out of 25ppm)                                                               

Mashed at 66°C for  120 Min. (2,6 l/kg)

Hops:
Target                       13,5 %    21 gr          60 Min.        27 EBU                                                       
East Kent Golding          6,0 %   20 gr          60 Min.        11 EBU                                                                 
Fuggle                        5,5 %    44 gr          30 Min.        17 EBU                                                       
Sorachi Ace               16,0 %    20 gr          30 Min.        23 EBU                                                             
Target                       13,5 %   20 gr          10 Min.        9 EBU                                                       
Fuggle (UK)                 6,5 %   20 gr          10 Min.        4 EBU                                                           
East Kent Golding          6,0 %   30 gr          10 Min.        6 EBU                                                                 
Sorachi Ace                16,0 %    40 gr          5 Min.         12 EBU                                                           

Fermented with two packs of Danstar Nottingham.

This has been sitting in secondary now for about half a year to mellow out. Turned out very bitter and not very complex. A bit of a downer, really. Sorachi ace is all but gone.

Two weeks ago I added 8 pears, which I'd baked in the oven in a salt crust.
Boiled them (skins and a bit of salt and all) in a sugar syrup until well caramelised.
Dumped that into secondary, along with a vanilla pod.
Two weeks in, it's already much richer, smoother and more layered.

[reverseapachemaster]

Seriously: what is it with AHA and peat? 

I've never looked at a swamp and wished I could light it on fire and eat it.