Questions about a British Bitter recipe

I usually just use a good British pale ale malt and about 3% Simpson's extra dark crystal. I would not use a roasted malt for color. For a dry yeast I would go S-04. For a liquid I love WY1469

 

It's been a long time since I've used S-04 but I don't recall having any "thin" body issues. It attenuates well and flocs hard, both good attributes in an English pale ale. The aroma is a bit "bready" for my taste, which is my only reservation, but many people like it.

Another candidate would be Windsor. I never cared for the attenuation, but it also has classic English character.

 

I would never call S-04 a newb yeast. Of the three I like it the most for English styles

 

This advice looks really familiar.... Not saying it is bad, but interesting to see how you build things. Good to see a way to build off from something you like.

 

Danstar has a new ESB yeast which might do well for your bitter

http://www.danstaryeast.com/company/products/london-esb

 

Your going to get a lot of opinions reflecting personal preference. You'll have to arrive at your own right answers.

I prefer English malts when I brew English styles. It's not just an OCD thing. They taste right for the beer. English crystal malts are delicious. I usually like to keep crystal around 5%. If you are looking for more color, don't fall into the trap of trying to get it from more crystal. A touch of a black or chocolate malt or roasted barley

I dislike S-04 as a dry yeast choice. To me, this yeast reminds me of bread dough. If using a dry yeast, I like Windsor (which has a fair amount of ester character) or Nottingham (which is more neutral) for English styles but there have been a lot of entries to the dry yeast market that I have not tried. For liquid yeast, I like several. WY1469, 1968; WL 002, 007. I have only use WY1318 when trying to mimic the NEIPA fad, but it is an English strain and has a distinct ester character that could be fun, depending on your opinion of that sort of thing. A lot of people like WY1028 but I've used it a couple times and it was not to my liking. I recall some tobacco-like thing going on that put me off.

I don't mind an American hop like cascade or centennial peaking out of my English beers, even though many in the US would say it is out of place (while some in the UK would tell your these hops get used in their breweries).

 

Bitter and pale ale can have a wide range of color. Some use the darker invert sugars as a color source, or Brewers caramel. Some will use dark roasted malts in a low %, and flavor can be minimized by adding at Vorlauf.

I have a light colored bitter on now. Very British tasting, slight American twist.

90% M0
5% light Carastan 17L
5% torrified wheat
0.5 oz equinox at 60
0.5 oz equinox at 10 (I know the name has changed, that was on the package)
WLP 002 pitched at 68F. No starter.
Pale ale water profile - about 300ppm SO4

If you are in Britain these days, you see a lot of Bitter with and American, AU, or NZ hop named on the pump clip.

 

I used the following grain bill recently and it worked out really well (won an award).

90% MO (Glen Eagles) Love this stuff!!
8% Crystal 40
2% Victory

As hopfenummaltz mentioned, there can be lot's of variation in the color and the overall character.

The version I made was on the lighter end of the spectrum. You could easily play around with the type of crystal and the type of character malt you use.

As for the yeast, I used wyeast 1968. I'm not terribly familiar with dry English yeast but I think you would probably go with S04 if dry was your only choice.

 

Sounds like a good plan to use 5% then change it to see the difference. I prefer liquid yeasts for lower abv bitters though, I do like nottingham for bigger beers and s04 in stouts. Also some bottled conditioned beers are good for building up yeast, such as Fullers Bengal lancer, the Hook Norton beers, Summer Lightning and the bottle conditioned St Austell beers




Here's a few grists from some older recipes for comparison sake. I think quite a few brewers stopped using sugars as they got demonized, unfairly imo.

Abbot Ale 1970s
Pale ale malt 82.8%
Flaked Maize 6.3%
Invert no 1 (30 ebc) 6.3%
Crystal light 3.8%
Black Patent 0.9%

Bass Draught
Pale Malt 85%
Maltose syrup 10%
Extra dark Crystal (340 ebc) 5%

Boddingtons, late '60s -
Pale Malt 77.5%
Lager Malt 15.5%
Torrified Wheat 2.5%
Acidulated Malt 2.5%
Flaked Maize 2%

Deuchars IPA -
Golden Promise 85%
Invert no 2 (65EBC) 10%
Wheat Malt 5%


Gales HSB
Pale Malt 76.6%
Invert no 2 (65EBC) 12.8%
Torrified Wheat 6.4%
Caramalt 3.2%
Black Patent 1 %

 

Well, I will throw my 2 cents in.

I use English Medium Crystal Malt when I brew my Bitter Ales. Lately I have been using 1 lb. for a 5 gallon batch.

My preferred yeast is WY1469. If I were to brew using dry yeast my selection would be Danstar Windsor.

Patrik, good luck with your Bitter Ale!

Cheers!

Edit: For my base malt I use MO malt.

 

I'll also add some support for Windsor. It just tastes "English". I also really like British caramel malts in general, but especially for an English style bitter.