What this is
A 5.6% English porter on an all-Gladfield grain bill, fermented with Nottingham at 19°C. Smooth and chocolatey rather than roasty, and built for winter.
It is also the most stable recipe in the archive. Across four brews spanning three years, five of the six grains have never changed by a single gram, and the sixth moved by 10 g. Nottingham every time. Taiheke at 50 g every time.
What that stability means
Most lineages here tell a story of searching. This one tells a story of getting it right early and leaving it alone.
The only genuine variable across four brews is the bittering hop, and even that has been a narrow search: Pacific Jade at 12 g on the first brew, UK Harlequin at 30 g on the second, Pacific Jade again at 50 g on the third, and New Zealand Harlequin at 50 g on the fourth.
Worth being precise about that last one, because the archive shows two hops called Harlequin and they are not the same. The 2023 brew used UK Harlequin, released by Charles Faram in 2019. The 2026 brew used New Zealand Harlequin from NZ Hops. Different breeder, different country, different hop — the name collision is a genuine one and both are recorded separately for that reason.
Brewing it
Mash at 67°C. The recipe leans on Munich at 21% for body rather than pushing the mash temperature, and the target FG of 1.017 is where a porter should sit.
No whirlpool and no dry hop. All 100 g of hops go into the boil, half at flameout. For a beer this malt-driven that is correct — the hops are there to balance, not to be noticed.
Nottingham is a single-pack pitch at this gravity and it attenuates hard for an English strain. If you want a sweeter, fuller porter, this is the lever to pull rather than the grain.