Fuller's London Pride
Testimonials
"Very tasty! I love the fruitiness of the yeast, and depth of flavor with low alcohol." - drcraig
"Hit all my numbers and it is great! A very nice session beer! I'm sure it's one I will keep on tap, right next to the Electric APA. Thanks again for yet another great recipe." - matto
"Wow! What a fantastic beer. Malty and complex, the English hops and yeast really set this beer apart. I can't believe it's only 4.2% ABV. I had this beer on tap at Pub Italia two weeks ago and I think mine is better. Thanks Kal!" - Geosmashing
"Just tapped this one today. When I kegged it a week ago I sampled it flat (like I always do for every beer I make) and wow I could drink this beer flat with no carbonation! I let it carb for a week in my conditioning fridge at very low carbonation and I tried it today. This is such a wonderful English beer! When it warms up in the glass the complexity really shines and the balance of nice English hops really prop up the malt and I love the finish. Another great recipe! Smooth as could be and very tasty! Thanks!" - jcav
"I love this beer and so does every one of my friends, along with the ESB." - Castermmt
"Kudos to Kal for another great recipe. In 2019 I had a layover in London and had a chance to drink a Fuller’s London Pride. Kal’s recipe is it. This is very, very good." - KB
Introduction
Fuller's London Pride is deep amber or bronze in colour, with a thinnish off-white head. It's a smooth and astonishingly complex beer, which has a distinctive malty base complemented by a rich balance of well-developed hop flavours from the Target, Challenger and Northdown varieties.
London Pride is somewhat lighter than their ESB, but the rich, underlying caramel and toffee sweetness is still there. This is complemented by Fuller's signature orangey notes, provided by their in-house yeast (available to homebrewers as Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale yeast or White Labs WLP002 English Ale yeast).
London Pride is satisfying and refreshing, and a cut above the average session bitter.
In the UK, draught London Pride is brewed to 4.1% ABV (cask and keg), while in bottles and cans it has a strength of 4.7% ABV, making it an ideal session-strength premium ale. In most of their overseas markets, a keg version at 4.7% ABV is available. We chose to make the 4.1% ABV version here.
5.5 million pints of London Pride are exported each year from the brewery in Chiswick UK. Image (c) fullers.co.uk
London Pride has twice been awarded Champion Best Bitter at the CAMRA Great British Beer Festival (1979 and 1995), and achieved the ultimate accolade of Champion Beer of Britain in 1979. It has won a host of awards around the world, including being crowned Supreme Champion at the 2000 International Beer and Cider competition.
If you don't like hoppy/bitter beers, don't let the word 'bitter' throw you off. English bitters are nowhere near as bitter as American styles. In fact, London Pride is all about balance. It's only bitter enough to balance the malt backbone.
Some recipes for this beer will call for flaked maize (corn). Fullers moved away from using that many years ago and now only use British pale and crystal malts. If you want do an 'old school' version of this beer, replace approximately 15% of the British Maris Otter malt with flaked maize (corn).
You may have troubles finding all of the hops needed for this recipe. Some hop substitutions will still give you an enjoyable bitter, just try and stick with English hops if possible. You can (for example) make a very nice variant with only UK East Kent Goldings (EKG) hops as they're much easier to find.
Yeast substitutions should be avoided however. One of the keys to brewing this right is to use Fuller's own yeast (Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale yeast or White Labs WLP002 English Ale yeast). The yeast is also highly flocculant (likes to settle out) so the beer drops brilliantly clear without need of any clarifiers.
Brew up a batch and let us know how you like it!
Fuller's London Pride
Size: 12 US gallons (post-boil @ 68F)
Mash Efficiency: 95%
Attenuation: 74.5%
Calories: 140 kcal per 12 fl oz
Original Gravity: 1.042 (style range: 1.040 - 1.048)
Final Gravity: 1.011 (style range: 1.008 - 1.012)
Colour: 11.5 SRM (style range: 5 - 16)
Alcohol: 4.1% ABV (style range: 3.8% - 4.6%)
Bitterness: 29 IBU (style range: 25 - 40)
Mash:
13.75 lb British Maris Otter malt (2.5-4L) (92.6%)
1.1 lb British crystal malt (90L) (7.4%)
Boil:
1.25 oz UK Target hops (10%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min [19.5 IBU]
0.75 oz UK Challenger hops (7%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min [3.9 IBU]
0.75 oz UK Northdown hops (9.6%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min [5.4 IBU]
1 Whirlfloc tablet (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale yeast or White Labs WLP002 English Ale yeast
(~357 billion cells [3-4 fresh packs] or an equivalent starter)
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Notes / Process
- Add 500mg potassium metabisulfite to 20 gallons water to remove chlorine / chloramine (if required).
- Water treated with brewing salts to our Hoppy lite flavour profile: Ca=110, Mg=18, Na=16, Cl=50, SO4=100 (Basically Randy Mosher's ideal Pale Ale numbers with slightly less sulfate and a Cl:S04 ratio of 1:2. We're not making a hoppy American beer here so we go a bit easy on accentuating bitterness.). For more information on how to adjust your water, refer to our step by step Water Adjustment guide.
- 1.25 qt/lb mash thickness.
- Single infusion mash at 154F for 90 mins.
- Raise to 168F mashout temperature and hold for 10 mins.
- ~90 min fly sparge with ~5.6-5.8 pH water (measured at mash temperature).
- Boil for 60 minutes, adding Whirlfloc and hops per schedule. Lid on at flameout, start chilling immediately.
- Cool the wort quickly to 66F (we use a one-pass convoluted counterflow chiller to quickly lock in hop flavour and aroma) and transfer to fermenter.
- Aerate or oxygenate the chilled wort to a level of 8-10 ppm dissolved oxygen. For more information refer to our Aerating / Oxygenating Wort guide.
- Pitch yeast and ferment at 66-68F (wort temperature). We use modified stainless fermenting buckets in wine fridges.
- Ferment until approximately 5 points from final gravity and then raise the temperature to 70-72F until finished. In our case we simply turn off the fermenting fridges and allow the beer to naturally rise to room temperature. Assume fermentation is done if the gravity does not change over ~3 days.
- There is no need to use finings such as unflavoured gelatin as the yeast is extremely flocculant and will drop brilliantly clear on its own.
- Package as you would normally. We rack to kegs that have first been purged with CO2 and then chill to near freezing while carbonating at the same time in a 6-keg conditioning fridge. After ~1-2 weeks at serving pressure the kegs will be carbonated and ready to serve. In a hurry? Feel free to raise the CO2 pressure temporarily to 30-40 PSI to carbonate fast over a 24 period, and then turn back down to serving pressure.
- Carbonate this beer to fairly low levels (the lower the better in our humble opinion, or even better, as a cask ale). If you have the means to serve it through a beer engine with no extra carbonation other than residuals left over from fermentation, do it! We think you'll really enjoy the difference. Over carbonation destroys a lot of the subtleties of this beer. Do not over carbonate. Another option that we've used is to serve the beer on a stout faucet pushed by a nitrogen/CO2 blend, producing a nice creamy head and close to flat beer. One inexpensive way to mimic this is to use a syringe (without needle). Pour the beer as you would normally and then suck up a syringe full and force it back into the beer, hard. Repeat 2-3 times and you'll knock most of the CO2 out of solution leaving a nearly flat beer with a creamy head. Not quite the same texture, but similar to a nitro pour. We tried this for years before finally adding a real nitrogen/CO2 serving setup to our basement bar.
For detailed brewing instructions, see our Brew Day Step by Step guide.
Enjoy!
Questions? Visit our Fuller's London Pride forum thread.
Pictures / Videos
Interested in seeing what we're brewing right now? Follow us on Instagram for pictures and videos of our brewing activities as they happen.
British Prime Minister Mr. Cameron enjoying a pint of Pride in the Hock Cellar tasting room at Fuller's brewery. Image (c) fullers.co.uk
