In 2016 we mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. I also recently read a book on the bard-dude so the moniker for my latest homebrew was almost inevitably going to refer to our Bill once I settled on a clone of Brakspear Bitter as my base recipe. Not that I’m playing it that close to Graham Wheeler’s instructions (Brew Your Own British Real Ale) but I figured I might as well begin from somewhere.

I mashed my grains in 10l of water for 1.5 hours at 66°C: 800g pale malt, 160g mild ale malt, 20g crystal malt, 20g biscuit malt, 5g black malt and 90g torrified wheat. Not all of those are in the original bill. It does have sugar (90g) and Challenger hops (14g) for the boil and a generous pinch of irish moss 10 minutes before boil. I substituted Fuggles for Styrian Goldings (5g) post boil.

That cooled overnight and I checked the gravity today – 1.042 so a little way above the nominal target of 1.035. It is now fermenting with 5.5g of Mangrove Jack Dark English Ale yeast. Now to wait…