CS 11 - Strapper Best Bitter

[Tilt]

This recipe has been a long time in the making.  I've been refining my house bitter for a while by working through a whole range of grists /hop combos and yeast varieties. 

The hardest won lesson for me (not a fast learner...) has been to keep the recipe simple, use good process and let the malt and yeast characters shine. For ages I mucked around with complex recipes - always being tempted to add just one more ingredient.  In the end they were all too complicated and resulted in muddled, indistinct flavours.

The other thing also I've realised is that, despite conventional wisdom, EKG and Fuggles aren't for me.  I'm just not into flowers and mulch in my beers. 

I'm about 80% happy with this as it is and looking forward to hearing what you fellas think.  All crticism will help me push this beer closer to the "fully stoked" end of the spectrum.

Deliberately carbed on the low side, this one's best served at English cellar temps.

Strapper Best Bitter

OG: 1.053 SG
Color: 12.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 45.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
4.70 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter  89.5 %
0.20 kg Crystal Malt Medium  3.8 %
0.20 kg Victory Malt  3.8 %
0.10 kg Crystal Malt Dark  1.9 %
0.05 kg Chocolate Wheat  (colour adjustment only - could sub any choc malt or Carafa Special here)

36.00 g Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min  31 IBUs
25.00 g Challenger [8.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min  10.1 IBUs
30.00 g Styrian Goldings [5.50 %] - Steep  1.7 IBUs
20.00 g Challenger [8.00 %] - Steep  1.6 IBUs
15.00 g Styrian Goldings [5.50 %] - Dry Hop

Ringwood Ale (Wyeast Labs #1187)

Salts added to 45L Onehunga water
7.00 g Gypsum
5.00 g Calcium Chloride
2.00 tsp Citric Acid (to acidify the sparge water)
2.00 g Epsom Salt (MgSO4)

[Michael_H]

Lovely clear copper. Small head. Bubbles seem about right. 

Not a big nose but not expecting one. Getting a little bit of a burnt sugar aroma maybe?

Lovely. Chewy, complex. Bitterness is the right place for how I like this style, if any criticism maybe a tiny bit too bitter for my taste. The malts are wonderful, matches the bitterness perfectly. Tastes fresh. 

Very impressed. I'll be taking notes from this recipe to get my bitters in a similar place. Thanks.

[Duncan Emo]

Hi Tilt - First to post comments but unfortunately I'm a Bitter heathen so my feedback won't add any value to getting you to your "fully stoked" spectrum.

Appearance - Nice and clear - light golden brown with a nice white head that lingers for quite a while. Low carbed as per your description which is what you were aiming for.

Aroma - Those Goldings come through on the nose

Taste and Mouthfeel - I didn't read your instructions and had this quite cold. Got a nice tingle of bitterness on each side of the tongue and nice malty base on the mouth.

A good beer - but wasted on me! But it's pushing my palate to try something different - so that's a good outcome!

Thanks!

[Tilt]

Thanks for the feedback fellas.  Glad to be part of broadening your beer horizons Duncan.

Yep Michael - I agree on the bitterness.  Probably a function of running out of Challenger for using the whole way through on brewday and at the last minute subbing in the Northern Brewer.  Its a rough bitterer that works OK in a heavily caramelly Cali Common but doesn't play that well with more delicate English styles.  Next time I'm using Challenger all the way.

[G S]

Not sure I can do the appearance / aroma / etc for this one. Simply a great beer to drink,only one significant fault, there was only one of them.
Now I know why a 'clear' beer is called bright, it was that.
My experiments in esb recipes haven't had the victory (biscuit?) before, which will be included next time. This beer had the body but not the sweetness other nz made esb's I've tried do, spot on.
Lovely lingering bitterness,
Great, thank you

[Peter Smith]

I was hoping to write up my review on the second bottle of this, but had to send that down to CS as the first case went missing (now found), so I am going on memory but as I was looking forward most to the bitters in this swap still fresh.

Poured and looked like a bitter, with delicate malt aroma.

Great malt base flavour, (I remember emailing Micheal H and saying holy cow this is a great bitter at this point....as he was coming round to drop off his beers),  perfect carbonation.     I would be 100% happy with the malt base in the beer.    I was busy enjoying the beer here , thinking there was another in my celler    8(

I couldn't put my finger on it with the bitterness at the time, now you mentioned the NB, it must be that.  I had an expectation of what would accompany the base malts re bitterness,  there where no off flavours just something in the bitterness did not match what I was expecting.   Perhaps a bitter does need to be bittered with a smooth bittering hop....

This is a great recipe and I think I am going to try this across a few yeasts in smaller jars to see what different yeasts can add or subtract.

I am still a bit bitter with NZ post on this one....

[Crusader-Rob]

Appearance:  clear dark amber/copper colour. looks good. Overcarbed for style in my eyes.

aroma: Malt and some yeasty esters, smells inviting, biscuity malt as well.

Flavour: Over-carbed nature of my particular bottle takes away from the flavours i can get already.. ?which is a shame, as Its a cleanly brewed beer, wiuth plenty of promise

Mouthfeel, again the carbing take away from this, nice thick malty beer though.

Overall; Nice beer, might check out the other bottle in a few days to see.how that one is.