CS1 - Oli and Mike's Bitter (B1 and B2)

[Mike]

Session Bitter recipe from Brewing Classic Styles. Brewed at Olis place with chilly-bin mashtun and 100L boil kettle. Pre boil wort yielded high gravity and so upped projected volume from 45L to 50L so as to not be to high OG for style. Missed our boil off volume by a fair margin (10L I think) and so instead of 50L of Session Bitter we ended up with 40L of Best Bitter at 4.7%. Split into two fermenters, B1 (Plastic) and B2 (glass). Fermented in the same fermentation fridge with STC1000 probe attached to B2, at 19C. I'm sure Oli can fill in anything I've missed/messed up.

[oliver]

Yeh that 007 culture went south after the first couple of brews, not sure what happened there. You might be right on the EKGs, I remember them smelling pretty earthy, I bought another batch off baylands recently, this batch smells real orangy and floral. No water adjustments in this one, unfiltered tap water too.

[Dougal]

Poured very carbonated and gushy, but de-gassed quickly in the glass as II drank it at about 14C.

Malt on the nose and a sharp, slightly biting yeasty note indicative of the agitated yeast in the bottle.

Nice flavour: malty and just sweet enough with the brown providing a nice depth, fruity but restrained. Earthy, spicy hops that are subtle and integrated. Mouthfeel was satisfying and rich once the fizz settled down. I think this would be great without the yeast turbidity.

The one thing I'd note other than the carbonation (this is personal so free to ignore me… and it could just be the yeast screwing with my tastebuds), is that I'm not so fond of Gladfield Ale. Don't know why, but it has a slightly…metallic for lack of a better word flavour that doesn't do it for me. I reckon this beer would be better with Maris Otter or the clean, bright nutty character of Golden Promise. Very enjoyable, balanced bitter though. I see I'm going to have to pull one out of the bag for that bitter comp you were talking about Mike…

Thanks. 

[Mike]

We'll see, Oli had more to do with this one that me. I think I'll be sticking pretty close to Brewing Classic Styles though! 

Interesting that you note that with Gladfield Ale. I'm actually regretting not doing the last two light hoppy beers I did with Gladfield pilsner malt.