NB Scottish Ale Kits questions

Northern Brewer General
1

Getting ready to do my 3rd brew and want to try a Scottish Ale (my favorite) but am a bit confused about the NB Kits. After listening to BN and Jamil’s show on Scottish Ale he basically said the difference between 60, 70, 80 is the OG and the amount of malt (not type of malt) in the ingreidents. To quote Jamil: "As for making a 70/-, 80/- or Wee Heavy, you can just increase the amount of pale malt and adjust the bittering. "

Well when I compare the NB kits, they have completely different malts and even hops between the styles:

NB 60:
SPECIALTY GRAINS

  • 0.5 lbs Briess Caramel 80L
    FERMENTABLES
  • 3.15 lbs Amber malt syrup
  • 1 lbs Dark dry malt extract
    HOPS & FLAVORINGS
  • 1 oz UK Kent Goldings (60 min)

NB 70:
SPECIALTY GRAIN

  • 0.25 lbs Briess Caramel 80L
  • 0.125 lbs Roasted Barley
  • 0.125 lbs Briess Special Roast
    FERMENTABLES
  • 3.15 lbs Gold malt syrup
  • 1 lbs Golden Light dry malt extract
  • 1 lbs Wheat dry malt extract
    HOPS & FLAVORINGS
  • 0.75 oz US Fuggle (60 min)
  • 0.5 oz US Fuggle (30 min)
  • 0.25 oz US Fuggle (15 min)

NB 80:
SPECIALTY GRAIN

  • 1 lbs English Medium Crystal
    FERMENTABLES
  • 3.15 lbs Gold malt syrup (60 min)
  • 3.15 lbs Gold malt syrup late edition (15 min)
    HOPS & FLAVORINGS
  • 1 oz US Fuggle (60 min)

1st question: Why the different ingredients? Especially between the 70 & 80? Why the use of DME in the 70?
2nd question: Which kit will get me closer to a Belhaven Scottish Ale? (I know these aren’t clones, but looking for similar qualities).
3rd Question: What’s the flavor difference between Kent Goldings and Fuggle in this recipe? Which hop is more authentic?

Thanks for any and all help!

2

  1. This is a question more for the person(s) who designed the kit. But simply adding more base malt to do a 70 or 80 is just how Jamil does it, it’s a good tip but certainly not how I would expect to see it across-the-board.

  2. I would look at the kit’s expected ABV compared to Belhaven Scottish Ale. The 70 will get you to about 4% which is the closest to Belhaven Scottish Ale.

  3. There’s no hop flavor in this beer, only enough hops to balance out the malt. So the choice of hop doesn’t really matter, but an english hop is what you want. Both EKGs and Fuggle are english and I know NB tends to sub-out US Grown fuggle in their kits. But you won’t taste it either way in this beer.

3

[quote=“alanzo”]1) This is a question more for the person(s) who designed the kit. But simply adding more base malt to do a 70 or 80 is just how Jamil does it, it’s a good tip but certainly not how I would expect to see it across-the-board.

  1. I would look at the kit’s expected ABV compared to Belhaven Scottish Ale. The 70 will get you to about 4% which is the closest to Belhaven Scottish Ale.

  2. There’s no hop flavor in this beer, only enough hops to balance out the malt. So the choice of hop doesn’t really matter, but an english hop is what you want. Both EKGs and Fuggle are english and I know NB tends to sub-out US Grown fuggle in their kits. But you won’t taste it either way in this beer.[/quote]

I figured it was a different person making the different kits and although I didn’t express it, I was looking more for an explanation in the end product flavors between the two different sets. Thanks for the explanations on the hops, useful!

They both have limited reviews can anyone recommend one over the other?

Thanks again!

4

I don’t know about the kits you listed, but the Hope and King Scotch Ale kit is awesome.