It's worth emphasising that cask beer is hugely dependent on the quality of cellarmanship in the pub, and for various reasons the average standard of cask beer in London pubs is some of the worst in the UK. There are some exceptions, and London generally has the numbers to allow high throughput so when it's right it can be great, but one imagines a lot of tourists are put off by drinking vinegar on a Tuesday lunchtime when they will get a so much better experience in a pub that cares on a Friday night.
Although the Malt Miller are great, folk in the EU may have better luck with
www.geterbrewed.com as they can use the Northern Ireland exemptions to act as a wormhole through the Brexit border mess so may be your best bet for getting British stuff into the EU.
Less appropriate though for 1970s Boddies, which was the matter at hand. Boddies though is the perfect example of how the right amount of crystal can be - nothing, northern bitters generally use less crystal than southern ones but tourists tend to only see the Thames Valley versions and assume they're all like that. And then they assume that the colour comes all from crystal and other speciality malts when in reality almost all traditional British brewers add caramel or a touch of black malt to make the beer browner so that they have a consistent product. It's no wonder that US commercial bitters tend to be a bit of a mess that don't bear much resemblance to the real thing, at least on the evidence of what made it across the pond for GBBF this year (advisory, contains handpull porn) :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...r-favorite-recipe.472464/page-88#post-9309332
This year CAMRA had a homebrew competition at GBBF for the first time - not as well-regarded as say Brewcon , but this recipe for the section winner gives you a starting point.
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/great-british-beer-festival.99058/page-2#post-1156557
Fuller's have tweeted some pages from their recipe book which I've collected in this thread, which led ESBrewer to
what he claims is a good match for ESB. It's worth noting that Fuller's use 7.2% light crystal and that's more than enough for my northern tastebuds.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...imperials-neipa-from-the-horses-mouth.642756/
It gets exponentially more difficult to make great bitter as you go down the ABV scale, but pubs generally don't put on cask beers over 4.5% as they don't get enough turnover except in city centres, so if you're not a regular bitter brewer I would strongly recommend starting at a classic Best strength of 4.3% rather than 4% or lower. My personal taste is overwhelmingly in favour of Goldings and anti-Fuggles, but putting aside that bias, Goldings were traditionally used in the premium beers of Britain and I'd suggest you start with all-Goldings before experimenting with other hops.
The thing about bitter is that it's all about balance - every component makes a contribution, but not overwhelming the other components. That starts with water, see these suggestions from one of the main British brewery suppliers - traditionally British brewers particularly in Yorkshire were obsessed with the hugely mineralised well waters of Burton (up to 1000ppm sulphate) and would load their water with gypsum. That's changing, you're seeing generally less minerals and more of a balance towards chloride, but British brewing liquor is still far more mineralised than USians are used to :
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...vous-about-mineral-levels.94723/#post-1044916
Yeast really matters and is a big part of the difference between different family breweries. The first choice is getting an actual brewery yeast - Brits can usually scruonge some cask dregs from a pub, or harvest from the few bottle-conditioned beers that use a primary yeast such as Fuller's 1845 or St Austell Proper Job. Second choice would be Brewlab in Sunderland who have an extensive collection of the real thing and after various ups and downs are now selling direct again :
https://brewlab.co.uk/product-category/home-brew-yeast-slopes/
I don't know how it works now, but in the past they were happy to take specific requests. Don't embarrass them by asking for eg "the Black Sheep yeast" as that gets into all sorts of trademark problems, but historically if you asked them for "a yeast suitable for a Black Sheep clone" then they would send you yeast labelled "HH". Which is a bit of a coincidence given that Black Sheep got their yeast along with some of their squares from the old Hardy & Hanson brewery....
You will also notice that about half the Brewlab descriptions include some mention of phenolics - phenolic yeast are far more common in the UK than US labs make out. But they tend to be awkward at a homebrew level, usually needing a lot of oxygenation - hence fishtails. WLP037 Manchester is slightly phenolic and meant to be great if you can find it, WLP036 Yorkshire Square i has a bit of a handful that can get very clovey if you don't give it enough oxygen. The Ringwoods and Whitbreads from US labs all have their fans, as I say I quite like WLP041 for an unfussy strain that gives a nice drinkable pint, and some of the WLP02x strains are worth a play.
But it's no good having a lovely yeast if you let it clean up after itself too much, see this epic thread on fermentation profiles for British yeasts :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...emps-and-profiles-cybi-other-thoughts.221817/
Just as some light reading, folk here will enjoy Jeff Alworth's series of articles on his impressions of British beer "in the wild" in 2019 - it's not all Fuggles and Goldings....
https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2019/9/10/juicy-bitter-on-cask
And his earlier paean to cask beer
https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2018/10/12/the-worlds-most-crafted-beer-is-cask-aleIf we ever wanted to exalt a beer type that requires the most hands fussing over it, a beer resistant to making at large scale, one that can’t really be put in a bottle, one that is as likely to wilt from environmental conditions as freshly-plucked lettuce, it is cask ale. When you’re served a pint at the right temperature, poured properly, that is perfectly fresh and well-handled, it’s a marvel of coordination. There’s a reason Americans picked the bones of British brewing while leaving its cask soul behind: it’s just too hard to make.
