What this is
A Valley Brewers Club style session recipe for BJCP 16D, Foreign Extra Stout. Unlike the Helles Exportbier, where the club supplied ingredients and the schedule was worked up locally, this one arrived complete. Every member brewed the same beer and the results were compared together.
7.4% from 1.075, five grains, three English hops and a clean English yeast.
Foreign extra, not dry
The style is the export version of an Irish stout, historically brewed stronger and hopped harder so it would survive the voyage. Both of those show in this recipe.
Gravity. 1.075 is nearly double a dry stout, and the beer finishes at 1.019 rather than drying out — that residual sweetness is what carries the roast rather than letting it turn harsh.
Bitterness. 80 g of Northern Brewer at 60 minutes is a large charge by stout standards, and it is there to balance the gravity. A dry stout gets its bite from roast barley; this gets it from both.
Roast, carefully. Only 4.4% roast barley and 2.5% light chocolate. That is restraint for a beer this dark — the colour comes as much from 6.6 kg of Maris Otter as from anything else, and the roast is a flavour rather than a bludgeon.
The sodium bicarbonate in the water is worth noticing. It runs against the instinct to add acid, but a grist with this much dark malt drives mash pH low on its own, and the bicarbonate brings it back into range.
On brewing a club recipe
The interest in a session like this is entirely in the variation between brewers, since the recipe is fixed. Different systems, different efficiencies, different water and different fermentation control all show up in the glass when everyone starts from the same sheet.
This batch came in exactly on target at 1.075 and 21.5 L into the fermenter, finishing 1.019 for 7.4%.
Brewing it
Mash at 67°C. High enough for the body the style wants, and the FG of 1.019 is a target rather than a shortfall.
Two packets of Nottingham, and pitch them properly — 1.075 is well past where a single sachet copes, and a stressed pitch at this gravity will leave the beer sweeter and hotter than intended.
Give it time in the keg. Both the roast and the bitterness settle over a few weeks, and it was still noticeably fresh at packaging.