Monday, February 13, 2006

Best Bitter

Finally had a chance to crack the keg of Best Bitter I made last month. It was my first short at force carbonation, and I got it wrong :P. When we cracked it, there was almost no carbonation... which is somewhat traditional for English ales, however this was dead flat. Not so tasty then. But by the next day after letting it sit at 20 psi overnight it was carbonated perfectly, and quite tasty if you ask me. It came out just as I wanted it to... perfect medium-brown colour (although on the darker side for bitters), nice smooth maltiness with a little graininess which was still quite plesant. It was pretty bitter, and not very tasty when warm, but had a great bite when served colder (7 or so C). I only used fuggle hops, so it was nice to taste it alone. I think in future recipes I'll change the hops to goldings, see how they change the flavour. I might also add more late-hopping, since in this batch while the bitterness is quite evident, I wasn't getting much flavour or aroma. So it was quite a simple beer, but when served in the proper conditions it was quite plesant.

Cheers!

2 comments:

crallspace said...

But still... flat beer is no fun!

bwestcott said...

By ... far. :P