This oak-aged ESB homebrew recipe comes to us from Bill Oates and his Brickhouse Brewery as featured in Chop & Brew – Episode 35: Brewing Up A Cure. Thanks to Bill for sharing this recipe and for his notes on oak-aging below the ingredients and process information.

For 10 gallons at 72% efficiency
OG – 1.046
FG – 1.010
ABV: 4.7%
IBU: 37
SRM: 12

Malt
18 lbs Maris Otter Pale Malt
1 lb 8 oz Thomas Fawcett Crystal 60
1 lb Victory Malt
8 oz Crystal 120

Mash in – 26.25 qt of water at 167F for 155F mash rest for 45 min
Fly sparge with 8.96 gal water at 168F
Boil for 75 minutes

Hops
1 oz Warrior (15%aa) – 60 min
1 oz East Kent Goldings (5%aa) – 30 min
1 oz Fuggles (4.5%aa) – 10 min
1 oz East Kent Goldings (5%aa) – 10 min

Yeast
White Labs WLP002 – English Ale

Bill’s Notes on Oak-Aging:
As far as the oak – I used one oak spiral medium toast American oak and.aged it for 7 days. If I were to brew again I would probably only use 1/2, or 1/4 of the oak spiral and check it every couple days to monitor the progress. I felt that one I served got too oaked, but I think it would work really well with a more subtle oak flavor. Other than that I brew the base recipe pretty often so I’m pretty happy with how it turns out.