Special Ingredient: Tea

This recipe from Edmund’s Oast Brewing Co. celebrates the history of Charleston, South Carolina. By “infusing black tea from Charleston Tea Plantation (America’s only tea plantation) into a traditional English-style mild, we have married the surprisingly complementary flavors of tea and roasted barley,” the brewery says. “Notes of tea, coffee, cocoa, and caramel meld seamlessly into this quintessential session ale.”

ALL-GRAIN

Batch Size: 5 gallons (19 liters) Brewhouse efficiency: 89% OG: 1.038 FG: 1.012 IBUS: 10 ABV: 3.5%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

5.25 lb (2.38 kg) Maris Otter 9 oz (255 g) Light Crystal 4 oz (113 g) Chocolate malt 0.8 oz (23 g) Black malt

HOPS SCHEDULE

0.43 oz (12 g) UK Goldings at 60 minutes

YEAST

English ale yeast (currently the brewery is using London III)

DIRECTIONS

Rest the mash at 158°F (70°C) until conversion. Mash off at 165°F (74°C). Boil for 60 to 90 minutes, following the hops schedule. (At Edmund’s Oast, they boil all their beers for 90 minutes, but because of the Maris Otter, you could boil for 60 minutes.)

Tea procedure: Use 2.6 oz (74 g) of tea per 5 gallons (19 liters) of beer. Steep the tea cold in about 21 fl oz (621 ml) water for 5 minutes. Before steeping, acidulate the water with lactic acid to ph 3. After steeping, use baking soda to raise the ph of the liquid to 5. Add this liquid at knockout.

After the boil, chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 65°F (18°C). Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 68°F (20°C) or whatever temperature your yeast strain needs.