As featured in CAMRA’s – The Modern Homebrewer – Andy Parker & Jamil Zainasheff and sponsored by ourselves The Malt Miller.

We would highly recommend purchasing and reading this book as it feature not only a wide selection of recipes but some great knowledge and techniques from Andy and Jamil on how to brew the best beer possible at home.

This recipe was provided for the book from a professional brewer, all of the recipes were scaled by the writers to a 20ltr batch size using 75% efficiency.

Where ever possible we have matched the exact ingredients, however in some recipes slight changes may be required and volume adjustments based on ingredient available to homebrewers.

Be sure to fully read the below details before purchasing so you are fully confident in the process and aware of the ingredients which are not included with this kit that you will need to add.

Weights are removed on this page due to publishing agreements but will be provided on the bags when the recipe is purchased or are present in the book for those who purchase it.

 

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Ingredients Included

Simpsons Malt – DRC (Double Roast Crystal)
Simpsons Malt – Crystal Medium
Crisp – Torrified Wheat
Thomas Fawcett – Mild Ale Malt
Simpsons Malt – Finest Pale Maris Otter
LALLEMAND Windsor British-Style Ale Yeast – 11g (1 pack)

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Method

Beer Style (main): British Ales
Beer Style (sub): Old Ale
Batch Size: 20
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.014
ABV %: 4.6
IBU: 26
Mash efficiency: 75

THE MASH
Temperature °C (Step 1): 67
Length (mins) (Step 1): 60

Mash notes: Water: Sussex Mains Water with copious amounts of table salt (see note).

THE BOIL
Boil time (mins): 60

Hop / kettle additions and timing:

NOT INCLUDED – Ernest 37g/1.3oz @ 60 minutes – not a readily available hop, use an alternative to achieve 26 IBU such as Pilgrim, Fuggles

NOT INCLUDED – Invert Sugar 300g/10.5oz @ 15 minutes (ideally Invert Sugar #3 – you can make your own!) – an alternative to use Mangrove Jacks Beer Enhancer 1

NOT INCLUDED – Weyermann Sinamar 25g/0.88oz @ 0 minutes – Same product is NBS Black Malt Liquid Extract 250ml

Yeast: Lallemand LalBrew® Windsor
Fermentation temperature/steps: Pitch 1 pack (11g/0.38oz) of Lallemand LalBrew® Windsor, which does not ferment maltotriose and will help with the low attenuation target of around 70%. Start fermentation at 18°C/64°F and allow to free rise to 20°C/68°F until target FG is reached then chill to 12°C/54°F before packaging

Comments:

Sunken Knave Household ‘Old’ Ale

Established in 2023, Sunken Knave Brewery is based in Worthing, Sussex, with the idea of resurrecting local historical styles of beer from the archives in bottle and cask. Traditional malts with Kentish hops are the base for all the recipes.

Household Ale is Sunken Knave’s only core beer and it is a representative of the Sussex Old beer style, a style that harks back to a Victorian tradition of adding high amounts of sodium chloride (table salt) that creates a soft yet full beer that is dark but does not have the astringent notes that can be associated with roasted malt. The medium to low attenuation combined with the blend of two different types of crystal malt adds sweetness alongside forest fruit flavours. The dark colour is helped by adding the merest touch of another traditional ingredient, brewer’s caramel colouring, which has been substituted for Weyermann’s Sinamar in this recipe. Sinamar is a liquid extract product made entirely from Weyermann’s super dark Carafa 3 malt.

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