Pharming Polly Scottish Heavy (Easy, Surefire Recipe #3)

Polly want a session beer?

This is the third recipe in our Easy, Surefire Recipe series. The idea behind the series is to present malt extract recipes that play to the strengths of malt extract and can be brewed using stovetop brewing practices with a high probability of success. The recipes are also designed to be simple — mostly meaning that you don’t have to make a yeast starter — but still produce great beer that is a good representation of the style.

Pharming Polly is a Scottish seventy shilling ale, a beer one notch lower in gravity than Scottish export ales. It is a well-balanced, session ale with a complex malt flavor that comes in part from the use of amber malt.

This beer is named after a ewe named Polly. Polly was one of two sheep that were the first transgenic animals to be cloned from adult somatic cells. (The other surviving ewe in her litter was named Molly. Their names were meant to rhyme with the name of another sheep, Dolly — the first animal cloned from an adult somatic cell.) Polly was cloned from an adult fibroblast cell from a ewe with the human gene for blood clotting factor IX inserted in her genome . The idea was to produce a strain of sheep that secreted blood clotting factor IX (used in the treatment of human Hemophilia B) in their milk.

“Pharming” is the name used for producing pharmaceuticals from transgenic farm animals. There is an Irish band called Flogging Molly, so I decided to call this Scottish beer Pharming Polly.

Pharming Polly Scottish Ale

Scottish 70/- ale

by Chris Colby

Extract; English units

DESCRIPTION

A Scottish 70/- (seventy shilling) ale, also called a Scottish heavy ale, is — despite the “heavy” moniker — a session beer. It is heavy compared to a Scottish 60/- ale, which is a similar beer, only lower in gravity. (A wee heavy is a different style of beer altogether.) This amber beer is balanced towards the malt, but only slightly so. The clean ale strains will yield a beer that emphasizes the malt (including amber malt) and hops over yeast byproducts. It is a great beer to have if you want to have another — exactly like the one before — when you’re done.

INGREDIENTS (for 5 gallons)

Water

carbon-filtered tap water

Malts and Malt Extract (for an OG of 1.040 and 15 SRM)

1.25 lbs. Scottish or English pale ale malt

1.0 lb. light Munich malt (10 °L)

12 oz. amber malt (30–35 °L)

1.0 oz. roasted (unmalted) barley (500 °L)

2 lb. 14 oz. light dried malt extract

Hops (for 23 IBUs total)

Kent Golding hops (23 IBUs)

1.25 oz. (of 5.0% alpha acids), boiled for 60 minutes

Yeast (for an FG of 1.010 and 3.9% ABV)

11 g sachet Fermentis Safale US-05 yeast, , Danstar BRY-97 (American West Coast) or Mangrove Jack M44 (US West Coast) dried yeast

or

2 tubes White Labs WLP028 (Edinburgh Ale) or 2 packs Wyeast 1728 (Scottish ale) yeast

Other 

1 tsp. Irish moss

3.75 oz. corn sugar (for priming to 2.2 volumes of CO₂)

PROCEDURES

In your brewpot, begin heating 2.0 gallons of water to a boil. Aim to reach boiling when the small mash is done. In a separate, large (8 qts. or larger) pot, heat 1.0 gallon of water to 164 °F. Place crushed grains in a steeping bag and submerge in second pot. Hold temperature around 153 °F for 60 minutes. This is a small mash. In a third pot, heat 0.50 gallons of water to 170 °F to use as sparge water. After the grains have mashed, place a colander over your brewpot, set the grain bag in it and pour the wort through it (to filter out solid pieces of grain); then, rinse it with the sparge water. Stir in half of the malt extract and bring to a boil. You should have about 3.0 gallons of wort. Do not let wort volume drop below 2.5 gallons during boil. (Top up with boiling water, if needed.) Once boil starts and the first bits of hot break show, add your hops and boil for 60 minutes. Add Irish moss with 15 minutes left in boil. Stir in remaining malt extract in last 10 minutes. (Dissolve it in a small amount of wort first to make it easier to stir in.) Chill wort to 65 °F and transfer to fermenter. Add water to make 5.0 gallons and aerate thoroughly. Pitch yeast and let ferment at 65 °F.  (Ferment at 60 °F 16 °C if you use one of the Scottish ale strains.) Keg or bottle and carbonate to 2.2 volumes of CO₂.

Caramelized Wort Option

After the partial mash, fill your brewpot to 3.5 gallons (13 L) and stir in roughly two-thirds of the malt extract. Put approximately 2 qts. (2 L) of this wort in a soup pot. Boil the wort in your brewpot following the instructions above. Boil the wort in the soup pot vigorously. Watch the color of the wort in the small pot. You can also take small samples, cool them down and taste them. When the separated wort has darkened to your liking, return it to the brewpot.

Looks like like ewe could use a beer. Get it? Because they’re . . . You’re right. I promise never to do that again.

Pharming Polly Scottish Ale

Scottish 70/- ale

by Chris Colby

Extract; metric units

INGREDIENTS (for 19 L)

Water

carbon-filtered tap water

Malts and Malt Extract (for an OG of 1.040 and 15 SRM)

570 g Scottish or English pale ale malt

450 g light Munich malt (10 °L)

340 g amber malt (30–35 °L)

28 g roasted (unmalted) barley (500 °L)

1.3 kg light dried malt extract

Hops (for 23 IBUs total)

Kent Golding hops (23 IBUs)

35 g (of 5.0% alpha acids), boiled for 60 minutes

Yeast (for an FG of 1.010 and 3.9% ABV)

11 g sachet Fermentis Safale US-05 yeast, , Danstar BRY-97 (American West Coast) or Mangrove Jack M44 (US West Coast) dried yeast

or

2 tubes White Labs WLP028 (Edinburgh Ale) or 2 packs Wyeast 1728 (Scottish ale) yeast

Other 

1 tsp. Irish moss

106 g corn sugar (for priming to 2.2 volumes of CO₂)

PROCEDURES

In your brewpot, begin heating 7.6 L of water to a boil. Aim to reach boiling when the small mash is done. In a separate, large (8 L or larger) pot, heat 3.8 L of water to 73 °C. Place crushed grains in a steeping bag and submerge in second pot. Hold temperature around 67 °C for 60 minutes. This is a small mash. In a third pot, heat 1.9 L of water to 77 °C to use as sparge water. After the grains have mashed, place a colander over your brewpot, set the grain bag in it and pour the wort through it (to filter out solid pieces of grain); then, rinse it with the sparge water. Stir in half of the malt extract and bring to a boil. You should have about 11 L of wort. Do not let wort volume drop below 9.5 L during boil. (Top up with boiling water, if needed.) Once boil starts and the first bits of hot break show, add your hops and boil for 60 minutes. Add Irish moss with 15 minutes left in boil. Stir in remaining malt extract in last 10 minutes. (Dissolve it in a small amount of wort first to make it easier to stir in.) Chill wort to 18 °C and transfer to fermenter. Add water to make 19 L and aerate thoroughly. Pitch yeast and let ferment at 18 °C.  (Ferment at 16 °C if you use one of the Scottish ale strains.) Keg or bottle and carbonate to 2.2 volumes of CO₂.