"Adams" - a SMaSH English bitter

I have been fascinated by the SMaSH experimentation that people have been doing with homebrew lately (there was a great "get to know your base malt" article in Zymurgy recently, too), so I decided that it was time I did one. Since I don't have lagering capabilities in my new place quite yet, I figured a Bitter would be a good way to go for SMaSH.

I love Maris Otter. Can't get enough of it. Pretty much ever since I started doing all grain it has been my favorite base malt, so that was my single malt of choice in the recipe. I used Willamette as the single hop because I really like the aroma, and I feel like Willamettes are always a hair cheaper than other types of hops. Here's the recipe:

8 lbs Maris Otter

1 oz. Willamette (pellets, 4.6% AA) @60
1 oz. Willamette @30
1 oz. Willamette @10
1 oz. Willamette @0

Wyeast 1968 London ESB (I've heard it has an amazing character, and obviously it will be awesome for this style of beer)

Single Infusion 152°

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Sounds yummy!

Bob

cuttsjp said:

I love Maris Otter. Can't get enough of it.:

Click to expand...

If you love the M.O. then i might suggest you do several batches just like this one in regards of mash temps/amount of grain/hop addition amounts+ times
but change out the hop used for each batch.
Similar to evaluating the base grains imput to beer you'd be doing the same thing but for examining the different hops and what each brings to the table.
Just my 2 cents.

I wouldn't call it a to-style Bitter (but then again, it's hard to get most styles "to style" with a SMaSH), but it sounds tasty to me.

1968 is a great yeast, but you might consider 1469 West Yorkshire. It has quickly become my house strain for anything English. And I agree about Maris Otter. Crisp MO has become my go-to base malt for anything English or American (I stick to Pils malt for Continental styles)

And +1 on the varied hops. You might want to try batches with Fuggles, East Kent Goldings, Target, Challenger, and other various UK hops.

If you use only Maris Otter for a bitter (which is not uncommon, but usually goes with a tad of anything from invert sugar to some black malt), I'd use a low-medium attenuation yeast to keep some sweetness in the malt and bring up those caramel notes.