Bitter Recipe - Ingredient Question
 

I want to make a bitter and want to try Papazian's recipe for Palace Bitter. Anyone try it and could comment on it?

Anyways, I remember 11 or 12 years ago, a friend brewed Wise Ass Red Bitter from Papazian's book, and I REALLY like it, especially the red color and the roasted character of the beer.

I was thinking of putting the 1/8 lb. of roasted barley from the Wise Ass and adding it to the recipe for the Palace Bitter recipe. Will this add the red color and roasted character, and not mess up the Palace Bitter.

Any experience, thoughts, recommendations, ideas on how this might work?

Can you post the recipe?

Palace Bitter - Papazian
 

Palace Bitter (5 gal)

4.5 lbs English light DME
12 oz crystal malt
1/2 oz English Fuggles (60 min)
3/4 oz Kent Goldings (60 min)
1/4 oz English Fuggles (30 min)
1/4 oz Kent Goldings (30 min)
1/2 oz Kent Goldings (15 min)
1/2 oz Kent Goldings (2 min)

English-style ale yeast

3/4 cup corn sugar (to prime)

OG 1.040 - 1.044
FG 1.008 - 1.012
IBU 26
Color 13 SRM

Thanks Mbreen,

And the Wise Ass recipe is:

4.4 lbs. Premier Malt hopped light malt extract
1.5 lb.s dried light plain malt extract
1/8 lb. roasted barley
2 oz. Cascade hop pellets
1/2 oz. Hallertauer hop pellets
1-2 pkgs. ale yeast

The Palace Bitter sounds like a good session beer. The ratio of crystal to DME looks pretty good, but you could add an extra 4 oz crystal to improve the color. Using 60L crystal should give you a nice deep color. I wouldn't use roasted barley in a bitter as you can get the color with the crystal without adding any atypical flavors.
The hops look pretty good unless you are a hop-head..
Hope this helps.

-a.

I am currently drinking an all-grain version of a session bitter that is pretty close to the Palace recipe for hop schedule and grains, however I jazzed it up a little this year by adding very small quantities of Vienna and bisquit malt to give it a little more color and grainy flavor. Came out very nice and i used the Thames River Vally yeast...

Personally, I would not add roasted barley, but that's me.

I am a bit of a hop-head and would like to make sure it's got a nice bitter bite to it. That being said, I don't want to overdo it too much.

What would you suggest I add in terms of hop to give it a little boost?

I would leave the bittering hops right where they are. If you want more hops, you could double the 30 or 15 minute additions.

But really, that's a solid recipe and it's going to have more hop flavour than your average English bitter.

I like the sound of this. This will definitely be the first beer I brew when I get back from vacation! This will also be the first beer I keg! I am very much looking forward to brewing this beer!

Thank you all for the advice and suggestions!

Just curious, what are the differences between all the English-style ale yeasts? I see several London Ale, British Ale, London ESB, English Special Bitter, etc. What would these impart to the Palace Bitter recipe above? Are they all pretty similar or are there some that have big differences? I've never brewed an English bitter and so I'm not sure what yeast to choose. Thanks.

Marc.