Help with John Smith's Bitter

[MazdaMatt]

I have had a request from a British friend for a John Smith's Bitter clone.

The internet is oddly un-helpful with this. I will try to go and find a pint of it so I can try it out (it has been like 8 years since I've had one). The best I can come up with is:

UK 2-row (84%)
Black malt (1%)
Sugar (15%) (not sure what kind of sugar)

Target hops (schedule? 2oz@60, 1oz@15?)

S-04

This is pretty much based off "some guy on the internet".

I haven't even put this through beersmith to get an idea of the ibu and srm yet. I don't even know what BJCP style this beer is; I can't find "British bitter" in beersmith.

Any input from the beery masses?

 

[MrAverage]

This one's from http://www.hopandgrain.com/ which is taken from Roger Protz's Real Ale Almanac which is the information that brewery provided and/or from other very reliable sources:

JOHN SMITHS MAGNET BITTER The Brewery Tadcaster

25 litre batch OG 1040 ABV 4% 37 units of colour 32.5 EBU

PALE MALT 3250 gms
BLACK MALT 41 gms
SUGAR 580 gms Added to Boiler

HOPS Boil time 90 minutes

TARGET 31 gms

Yeast of your choice.

Roger Protz says here http://www.beer-pages.com/2010_01_01_archive.html that "Magnet was a 4% cask beer and it was a nice drop. While it was only 2% stronger than John Smith's Bitter and had an identical recipe, it had an appealing malty and fruity character."

So you can modify the above recipe to lower the ABV/Og a little - the John Smith's website says that the Bitter is 3.8% ABV

As for the sugar, I'd use demerara (i.e. "Sugar in the Raw" ) or light brown sugar

Note that the "units of colour" are EBC units, not SRM. SRM = EBC x.375 +.46, so you're shooting for about 14 SRM.

"EBU" = IBU

To be totally authentic, you should probably use a Yorkshire yeast: Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale or White Labs WLP037 Yorkshire Square, but they're both Premium/Seasonal strains that you can't get right now. Maybe substitute Wyeast 1968 ?

EDITED TO ADD:

Further research yielded the following info from the Real ale Almance for John Smith's Bitter:

84% pale malt, 1% black malt, 15% concentrated sugar,
small % caramel for colour. OG 1.036, ABV 3.8%, 26 units of colour (EBC),
target hop pellets 32.5 IBU

So, that should give you what you need to get pretty close to the real thing.

 

[MazdaMatt]

Great, that seems to jive with my research so far. More input is welcome, but I've got a great base.

 

[TBMaster]

As a Brit I'd have to ask "why?". John Smith's is a bit like the Coors light of English bitter. With so many cracking ales to clone why JS? Sorry aware this isn't overly helpful, but I am a bit intrigued.

 

[MazdaMatt]

Well here's an idea as to why... Coors light sells probably 10^6 more than the most delicious beer you've ever had. It is what people want.

I'm not being smug, that's just the reality of it. We all ponder for hours why anybody drinks the most popular beers in the world... almost seems silly for us to do that, no?

...and what the hell, at 3.8% and mostly base malt, this won't be an expensive beer and it'll be great for summer yard work.

 

[TBMaster]

Aye can't argue with your logic sir. To be honest though it's about 50p a can....gotta be as cheap to buy the real thing.

 

[MazdaMatt]

...not in Canada it isn't! 4 pack of pint cans is $10cdn, if I'm thinking the same stuff. On tap at a pub you're looking at about 4.50-6.00 per pint.

This is not a joke... at least not the funny kind.

 

[TBMaster]

Sorry mate misunderstood, thought he was brewing it in uk....not missing it and brewing it in Canada. Makes a lot of sense now......I'll shut up )

 

[MazdaMatt]

Ooooh, okay.

Quite frankly I'm jealous that you can get ANY beer for 50p. Around here you simply can NOT find ANY beer bottle for cheaper than $3.25 or any poured domestic pint for less than $4.00 or any poured premium or import for less than $4.50. Ontario booze taxes are nuts.

 

[sofa-sauvage]

I'm in San Francisco, just bought a 4 pint pack of JS nitro cans for $8.50. I think it's a great beer, but I like the British styles best. I like Tetley's, I like John Smith's, but I also like Coors I wouldn't try to brew coors though. I'm wondering what your take on Timothy Taylor's Landlord is, I think I'd try to clone that. Honestly, and I'm sure there will be opinions on this, I think John Smiths and Tetley's are delicious session beers and that they are subtle, too subtle for the homebrewer to nail. The balance is incredible, way better than Coors light, after 8 pints of either of those beers I'm still not sensing any flavors poking out - maybe getting a little on the malty side, but damn, pretty balanced. I know people will spit beer on the screen when they read this but, I think you brits take your beer for granted Then again, I'm an ale guy living in a lager world So hard to find a bar with a nice cask selection of 3-4% low carb malty beers to drink up... Everyone here likes IPA ****in Imperial ****in 6000IBU ****in brain numbing IPA, ****in hop vapors coming out of your nose. K, I'll stop there. I'm sick of going to Magnolia or Toronado.

Brewing this tomorrow, first run on the 'big rig' 30 gallon capacity system:

40 lbs (93.0%) 2-row
3 lbs (6.3%) Crystal 40L
0.5 lbs (0.8%) Roasted Barley 500L
6oz Challenger
Wyeast American Ale