Blue boy is a fancy lad who can appreciate a good dark English Mild

Working with a sour beer pipeline is challenging. Since sours take quite a bit more time than non-sour beers a brewer needs to plan ahead. Back in January I had a “double” brewday of sorts. I was finishing up a sour-worting for a Berliner Weiss which only required a 30 minute heat to 176 and then chill and pitch. I decided that I had enough time to brew a full batch of beer in addition to this short heating and cooling cycle.

This turned out fine, but was one of the busiest brewdays I’ve had, even with help. So, to avoid this extra stress, I’ve instead decided to brew larger batches and split the results. My next planned sour is a Flander’s Brown, or Old Bruin. I’ve also got a nice yeast cake from the Ed’s Best Bitter batch, so instead of wasting that, I’m going to brew an English Mild, right at the edge of the gravity limit for the style and then pitch half on the 1968 yeast and the other half will be racked onto a Roselares yeast cake from a Flander’s Red that’s been souring since January.

in Rubicundiusque, Flander’s Red souring since Jan, 2013

Here’s the recipe for Fancy Lad

2013-03-29 — Brewed with Mark, collected 10 gallons of 1.041 wort, split into two carboys. One repitched onto the Wyeast 1968 cake from Ed’s Best Bitter. The second 5 gallons collected into a 6.5 gallon carboy with the yeast cake from the Flander’s Red.

2013-04-03 — Gravity Check, Non-sour half, S.G @ 1.016, raised temp to 72F for d-rest
2013-04-03 — Gravity Check, Sour half, S.G @ 1.009, continue ambient temp