My ninth brew for “Project NHC” was part of a brew-off at my local homebrew club up in Kerikeri. About six of us decided we would brew a clone of Fuller’s London Pride (a Best Bitter) to see how variations in our brewing process affected the final product. The recipe was taken direct from an interview with Fullers, however there was a bit of a miscommunication about Lovibond vs. EBC when ordering ingredients, and the long and short of it is that the crystal malt we used was about 35L when it should have been 70L. This resulted in a beer that, while similar to London Pride, did not have that signature British crystal malt flavour.
What I ended up brewing was a good beer. But I do have some concerns that the judges may find this to be a bit lacking on malt character for style. I think it can still fairly be called an English Bitter; but just barely.
There was also a miscommunication about base grain volume which would have led to a higher ABV beer. Not wanting to veer from the recipe that everyone was using, I decided to brew this BIAB and intentionally remove the bag without letting all of the sugars have time to rinse out. This way I was able to hit my target ABV without veering from the recipe itself.
Finally, Northdown hops were not available and so we substituted them with Challenger.
Here’s what the BJCP has to say about category 27A, Piwo Grodziskie:
From the BJCP 2015 guidelines: “A flavorful, yet refreshing, session beer. Some examples can be more malt balanced, but this should not override the overall bitter impression. Drinkability is a critical component of the style.”
RECIPE
Batch size: 23 litres (20 into the fermenter)
Starting gravity: 1.049
Final gravity: 1.012
ABV: 4.8%
SRM: 9
IBUs (Rager Formula): 39 IBU
Boil: 60 Minutes
Mash Temp: 64.5°C rest for 60 minutes.
Water: Tongariro bottled water and 1 tsp Calcium Sulphate.
5.4 Kg Bairds Maris Otter
290g Gladfield Medium Crystal 35L
22g Target (11% AA) @ 60
36 g Challenger (7.5% AA) @ 3
6 g East Kent Goldings (4.5% AA) @ 3
3 g Irish Moss @ 10
1 pack Wyeast 1968 – London ESB yeast (did a starter).
Ferment at 17C, raise to 20C.
NOTES:
June 23rd, 2016: Pitched yeast at 17 C and began raising half a point each day until it hit 20 C.
July 2nd: Added Williams Warn clarifying agent last night. Looks reasonably clear. Lighter in colour than I had hoped. Aroma is slightly fruity with a low earthy hop aroma. A little less caramel and malt than I had hoped for, but it still tastes like an English Bitter. Medium/light body and very drinkable. No detectable flaws. If anything it’s too clean.
October 26th: Tasted one of my few remaining bottles to see how it held up for the coming competition. Aroma of light caramel, honey, and a touch of earthy hops. Flavour is clean, caramel, and low earthy hops. The beer has held up well for all these months in a keg filled bottle. No off flavours. I still feel that this is a well brewed beer, that while technically still in style, may be dinged for being too light in colour, and/or to mild and clean for a Best Bitter. If anything, age has helped bring out some of the caramel flavours that push it closer into style. Nice, easy drinking beer though. It was popular with my friends and the keg kicked fast.
Lessons learned:
- Medium and dark crystal is essential for a classic English Bitter.
Leave a comment below if you have any questions about the recipe or process.
[…] Best Bitter […]
Hi John, I brew a best bitter often and have gone through so many iterations over the years looking for the elusive perfect pint it is almost silly. Usually I’ll change one thing but this last brew I changed several – not a great idea. Changing to Gladfield crystal malts has been an adjustment and using a Brewtoad conversion the average Lovibond (my preferred scale) for their dark crystal malt seems to be around 75L – not all that dark. So my decision is whether to mix medium and dark or just go for the dark…I am inclined to the latter. I usually also add a bit of amber malt to the mix too. I love the Fullers London Pride. Any thoughts would be welcome from your experience, doubtless you have experimented further since then?
Regards,
Ian
Hi Ian,
I love Gladfield, and you can definitely make a great Bitter using their malts. However, I confess that if I’m going for a very English Bitter, I personally go with Bairds or Thomas Fawcett, but I think that’s just because I have fun using ingredients indigenous to the area a beer is from. In saying that. I know Gary just brewed an all Gladfield Bitter that he is very happy with (I’m yet to try it).
If memory serves, London pride uses a Simpson’s dark crystal that is about 70L. Sounds like you would be pretty close with the Gladfield dark.
Hi John,
Thanks for your thoughts. Marshall Schott at Brulosophy did an interesting experiment, making the identical brew twice but using Marris Otter in one and a regular base malt (can’t remember which one – but Gladfield’s ale malt would make a very good option) in the other and tasters could not tell the difference. That was quite telling to me because so far I have stuck with MO in British ales. It does reinforce once more how perception before the fact colours your judgement when tasing. Eating a wee bit of the MO malt does seem to reveal a special kind of maltiness but I doubt I am connoisseur enough of malt to pick up the difference. The thing is that I purchased a 25 kg bag of ale malt so I shall be delighted if it proves to be ideal for a best bitter!
Cheers,
Ian
Hey Ian,
The base malt is not why I go with English malts on a Bitter. It’s the crystal malts which I think have a more definitively English flavour/colour/taste, but that’s just me.
And while I love what Brulosphy is doing, and I sincerely think what they are doing is incredibly valuable… I personally have my own suspicions about blind triangle tests. My feeling is that when someone has no idea what they are looking for their senses get kind of bewildered as they mentally look in every direction at once. But when you tell a person to detect the difference in, say, the malt quality, their senses can hone in and start processing information differently.
I personally believe this is why so many of the age old axioms of brewing come back as statistically insignificant. I suspect that a lot more of them would come back as significant if people knew what the difference was before being asked to pick it out. I think that matters, because I think those differences would become apparent to drinkers as they drank pints of a beer, vs a small sample in a controlled tasting environment.
I have experienced this myself in tastings where I have struggled to pick out basic differences between very different beers when I was tasting completely blind, only to hone in on all kinds of subtitles once I got the slightest hint at what I was drinking.
I think it’s also why we have seen situations where experienced sommeliers were blind folded and couldn’t tell the difference between red and white wine. I don’t think it means tasting is all one big fraud, or completely driven by sight, so much as it means that different parts of our brain become active when we are blind tasting, vs looking for the subtitles within a defined range… you know what I mean?
Just one guys opinion. I’m sure many would disagree.
Hey Ian,
The base malt is not why I go with English malts on a Bitter. It’s the crystal malts which I think have a more definitively English flavour/colour/taste, but that’s just me.
And while I love what Brulosphy is doing, and I sincerely think what they are doing is incredibly valuable… I personally have my own suspicions about blind triangle tests. My feeling is that when someone has no idea what they are looking for their senses get kind of bewildered as they mentally look in every direction at once. But when you tell a person to detect the difference in, say, the malt quality, their senses can hone in and start processing information differently.
I personally believe this is why so many of the age old axioms of brewing come back as statistically insignificant. I suspect that a lot more of them would come back as significant if people knew what the difference was before being asked to pick it out. I think that matters, because I think those differences would become apparent to drinkers as they drank pints of a beer, vs a small sample in a controlled tasting environment.
I have experienced this myself in tastings where I have struggled to pick out basic differences between very different beers when I was tasting completely blind, only to hone in on all kinds of subtitles once I got the slightest hint at what I was drinking.
I think it’s also why we have seen situations where experienced sommeliers were blind folded and couldn’t tell the difference between red and white wine. I don’t think it means tasting is all one big fraud, or completely driven by sight, so much as it means that different parts of our brain become active when we are blind tasting, vs looking for the subtitles within a defined range… you know what I mean?
Just one guys opinion. I’m sure many would disagree.
Hi John,
I really enjoyed your reply and not only found it refreshingly interesting, but extremely relevant and just offhand I largely (if not entirely) agree. First off your comment on crystal malt. I was thinking MO vs other base malt, something many find important. But I have to say that the crystal malt things is something I would like to pursue further because I have found it difficult to hone in on just the right one for my ideal brew (talking best bitter here). Gladfield has quite a wide range of ebc possibilities for each malt (pale, medium and dark) with midway being an average and it isn’t always easy to choose. One could of course mix. Perhaps a good way would be to purchase a small amount of various crystal malts and compare teas made from them. But I shall brew this next ale and the following one will be brewed changing only the crystal malt to a British variety by way of comparison. Regarding your perception comments – absolutely. I am aware to the red wine/white wine blind tasting and agree that it surely cannot mean that the tasters are that devoid of ability. I find that in our own club sometimes I come to my own beer in a local competition and with such a small sample after tasting half a dozen other beers it just doesn’t have the same level of appeal to me as it might when I am at home and can draw a full pint and take deep draughts of the stuff. It is doubtless a subject we could deliberate joyously and in depth over a few pints, but yes, I certainly do know what you mean and I think your points are extremely valid. And regarding Brulosophy, I agree, I do not think they are claiming to discredit all conventional axioms, only to make us aware of how preconceptions can affect our judgement.
Hi Ian,
My apologies for the slow follow up. You make all good points. I agree that sometimes a beer tastes very different with just a few small sips. i won’t say which one it was, but the other night I opened up a bottle of a very popular high ABV beer. At the first sip I thought it was amazing. But I struggled to get it down by the end of the glass because the balance wasn’t there to sustain the experience. There are so many example like that.
Good luck with your next brew and let me know if you come back with any conclusions after trying different crystal malts.
Cheers.
Thanks John, no problem. I thought probably you just thought that conversation was done…of course when it comes to brewing the conversation never is! 🙂
Remarkably enough I just received your reply and today is the day I brewed that ale. I used the Gladfield dark crystal malt and, for the first time ever with a best bitter (and man, I have brewed a lot of iterations of this style) I used the Gladfield ale malt too. So much beer with nary a drop to drink; I have a strong Belgian blonde doing some lagering and a Marze Oktoberfest style lager also lagering for a few weeks more. Then today’s brew in the fermenter…yet I had to go out and buy beer! I’ll let you know how it gets on. I use a Braumeister these days and have been experimenting to get the right crush with my malt mill – I was not getting great efficiency and it is looking better now with a courser crush. Still, when I look at your grain bill for your best bitter and also one similar to mine from Jamil’s book, I am still certain that Beersmith is giving me higher estimates for OG than it ought to. Regarding the sipping versus proper drinking, I have a book by Jennifer Talley on session brewing and it deals quite a bit with just that – no good just having lower ABV if the beer doesn’t slide down and draw you back for another!
Cheerio and thanks for the banter and the thoughts, useful and fun.
Hi John,
I just thought I’d drop you a quick message to say that I kegged my best bitter a couple of weeks ago and tried it last night. I have to say I was pretty happy with it and expect a bit of improvement over the next couple of weeks. I dispensed with my usual policy of using Marris Otter and used all Gladfield malts – and for about 22 L in the fermenter I used 4.5 kg of ale malt, 450 gm of dark crystal, 200 gm of torrefied wheat with EKG hops 34 g at 60 min, 14 gm at 20 min, and 14 gm at 1 min. Safale SO4 yeast two packs rehydrated and two weeks in the fermenter at 18 C cranked up to 21 C on the 5th day. Cold crashed and fined with gelatine. I do carbonate at about one atmosphere and serve around 5 – 6 C which are departures from the style but I like it like that. Slides down pretty smoothly!
Oh sorry, OG around 1.046.