premium/esb
 

Hello.

I'm working on a new setup in a new state, and so I have some experimenting to do. My goal is to create a nice mildly bitter session ale, somewhere on the border between a premium and extra special bitter. I'm going to brew three batches of this right off the bat (once a week). First will be a control batch. Second, I will play around with some water treatments and brew the same recipe. Third, screw around with boil times.

So I'm trying to craft a nice mild recipe that I'll still enjoy. I'm not too concerned with style guidelines, so I was thinking of using an American hop like chinook for bittering and finishing with a small Fuggle addition (depending on LHBS prices and selection). But I've also been considering Target or Northern Brewer for bittering. I want something without much, if any, citrus character, that will give a clean bitterness. I want a good malt backbone, and some pine/woodsy character (hence the chinook and yeast choices).

Here's what I've got at the moment, with some help from ProMash:

6lbs pale DME
.5 lbs crystal 40L (155 for 10 min)
.25oz chinook, target, or northern brewer @ 60min
.5oz chinook, target, or nb @ 30min
.5oz fuggle @ 10-15min
white labs wlp013 london ale yeast


any thoughts?

i just brewed a ordinary bitter and used 2 oz fuggles:

1 oz - 60
.5 oz - 15
.5oz - 5

its not done fermenting yet but the wort tasted good. Ive never used chinook so i cant really comment on them but from what ive seen they may be a little to harsh for a bitter, but i could be wrong.