Ordinary Bitter Ol' Bitter Bastard (2013 NHC Gold medal)

[deere322]

A week into carb in bottles yielded this-

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Big yeast profile with stone fruit esters, subdued yet prominent malt backbone and pleasant hop bite on the earthy floral type.
Young but very appealing.
Soft carb @ 2.0 vol.

Really dig the 1469.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1452955075.518741.jpg

 

[Malty_Dog]

Looks fantastic deere322. This one is next on my list.

 

[deere322]

Looks fantastic deere322. This one is next on my list.

I really suggest using the 1469 if you can get it.
Thinking I might keep it as my house strain.

 

[Malty_Dog]

Morebeer had it (1469) so I skipped the LHBS for this one. Looking forward to brewing in about 2 weeks!

 

[mhot55]

Awesome. Just absolutely awesome. I was looking for a "normal" everyday beer. Something that was away from the American hops. Gotta say I'm not a huge fan of this style- but this recipe was just perfect. I admit I tweaked it slightly- increased OG to 1.046, used British crystal equivalents, decreased crystal an oz or 2 and increased that with more biscuit.
This is an excellent quaffable damn tasty beer. Nothing sexy- just plain solid. Not too sweet, not too biscuit, not too bitter. Just damn near perfect on every facet. Carb'd this around 2.3-2.4 volumes and u have an easy nice beer.

When you just want to get away from the citrus, grapefruit, tropical, pine or resin American styles or roast sweet over the top flavors of stoats and just want a solid great easy pint- this recipe is flat out awesome. Kudos to the man who posted it. I am indebted.

 

[PattyC]

Awesome. Just absolutely awesome. I was looking for a "normal" everyday beer. Something that was away from the American hops. Gotta say I'm not a huge fan of this style- but this recipe was just perfect. I admit I tweaked it slightly- increased OG to 1.046, used British crystal equivalents, decreased crystal an oz or 2 and increased that with more biscuit.
This is an excellent quaffable damn tasty beer. Nothing sexy- just plain solid. Not too sweet, not too biscuit, not too bitter. Just damn near perfect on every facet. Carb'd this around 2.3-2.4 volumes and u have an easy nice beer.

When you just want to get away from the citrus, grapefruit, tropical, pine or resin American styles or roast sweet over the top flavors of stoats and just want a solid great easy pint- this recipe is flat out awesome. Kudos to the man who posted it. I am indebted.

Thank you for that flattering feedback! Really happy to hear you are enjoying it. Cheers!

 

[signpost]

Been wanting to brew this for a while. I adjusted the recipe quite a bit to use what I have on hand, but tomorrow I'll be brewing something like this. I'm excited.

 

[Malty_Dog]

Been wanting to brew this for a while. I adjusted the recipe quite a bit to use what I have on hand, but tomorrow I'll be brewing something like this. I'm excited.

Nice, I'm brewing this tomorrow as well. Should be fun!

 

[phug]

what's your original water profile, and final water

 

[Malty_Dog]

Might have to move this to a warmer spot. Closet its sharing with a Denny's Favorite 50 (mad airlock activity) is about 62 F tops. No action in 1469s airlock atm, almost 24 hrs later.

*Edit - check that - we have activity. Although temp check shows 59-60 in there, may still move to slightly warmer spot.

 

[Malty_Dog]

Pretty sure I'm at FG at day 7 at 1.010. Will leave at current spot (67 F) for another week or so. Hydro sample was excellent! Flavor was malt-forward and Wyeast's site was right on with the "moderate nutty and stone-fruit esters". Now I get why this particular yeast is a critical part of this brew. Awesome.

 

[OkanaganMike]

First tasting today and I have no head retention. I carb'd to 2.2 and bottle conditioned for 3 1/2 weeks, its well carbonated but no head. Is this standard with this recipe or did something go wrong?

Edit - more to add.

Also, I used an English ale yeast from white labs and there is a slight tang to the taste that I'm not a fan of. Any suggestions? Would aging it a few more weeks even the tang out?

 

[phug]

6 days after brew day and I'm at final gravity.

 

[signpost]

I'm thinking of adding a tiny bit of oak to this. What do you all think?

I have the Black Swan barrel alternative things, and a series of beers that I think it would work in. My thought it to toss it into this beer for just 2 or 3 days, then I'd move it on to other beers (an oat wine, an old ale w/ brett, and then a dark sour).

I'm just wondering if 2-3 days would be a good amount of time for this beer. I bumped the OG of mine up just a little bit, but it's still relatively low gravity. So, I obviously don't want to overwhelm it with oak character. I could possibly go with the oat wine first, then my Bitter Bastard rendition, before moving to the wild/sour beers.

Has anybody else used oak in this?

 

[phug]

First tasting today and I have no head retention. I carb'd to 2.2 and bottle conditioned for 3 1/2 weeks, its well carbonated but no head. Is this standard with this recipe or did something go wrong?

Edit - more to add.

Also, I used an English ale yeast from white labs and there is a slight tang to the taste that I'm not a fan of. Any suggestions? Would aging it a few more weeks even the tang out?

When I carb that low I have to pour aggressively to get a head to form. I'm sometimes pouring from 6 inches above the glass

 

[OkanaganMike]

When I carb that low I have to pour aggressively to get a head to form. I'm sometimes pouring from 6 inches above the glass

Can never quite seem to get the carbonation right on a consistent basis. Last few were in the lower range due to a calculation error and not understanding temps before priming. Had a couple bombs and some that would hit the ceiling if you weren't careful cracking the bottle.

Finally moving to kegging so should be able to adjust up or down depending on my liking a lot more easily.

 

[phug]

pulled together a label for my batch bottled today

 

[Malty_Dog]

Awesome. Just absolutely awesome. I was looking for a "normal" everyday beer. Something that was away from the American hops. Gotta say I'm not a huge fan of this style- but this recipe was just perfect. I admit I tweaked it slightly- increased OG to 1.046, used British crystal equivalents, decreased crystal an oz or 2 and increased that with more biscuit.
This is an excellent quaffable damn tasty beer. Nothing sexy- just plain solid. Not too sweet, not too biscuit, not too bitter. Just damn near perfect on every facet. Carb'd this around 2.3-2.4 volumes and u have an easy nice beer.

When you just want to get away from the citrus, grapefruit, tropical, pine or resin American styles or roast sweet over the top flavors of stoats and just want a solid great easy pint- this recipe is flat out awesome. Kudos to the man who posted it. I am indebted.

Couldn't have said it better myself! Love it. No finings or cold crashing so some chill haze there - like I care

 

[signpost]

OK, so I kind of masssacred this recipe because of the ingredients I had available, but I feel like the core of the recipe was still there. Mine is slightly higher ABV. Not quite ESB level, but definitely above the standard bitter level. I think it is right in what I used to think was the useless category of Best Bitter. Also, I used all UK Pilgrim hops, as I had gotten a pound of them for free when I placed my bulk hop order back last Thanksgiving (or was it Christmas?). And I love the 1469 yeast, but I got some of the 1882 Thames Valley II yeast when it was available and used that.

Anyway, I just cracked open my first bottle after precisely 2 weeks carbonation time.

This is such a perfect beer.

It's like my over-romanticized memory of a perfect pint of Bass Ale, when I was first getting into tasty beers. Only this is definitely better than the Bass actually was.

Very British all around and super well-balanced.

I'll definitely be brewing this again.

 

[Kharnynb]

used this as a start to make a bitter, as many of the ingredients weren't there.

here's my recipe, tasting will be in about a month

Grains:
Marris otter pale malt 3 kg
Cara pale 10 300 g
Crystal 100 200 g
Bisquit malt 150 g

Hops
tettnanger 3.8 alpha 20 grams @ first wort
tettnanger 3.8 alpha 25 grams @ 60 minutes
tettnanger 3.8 alpha 15 grams @ 20 minutes
tettnanger 3.8 alpha 10 grams @ 0 minutes
Cascade 4.8 alpha 20 grams @ 0 minutes

Special:
Gypsum .25 tsp @ 60 minutes
Irish moss 1 tsp @ 5 minutes

 

[phug]

used this as a start to make a bitter, as many of the ingredients weren't there.

here's my recipe, tasting will be in about a month

Grains:
Marris otter pale malt3 kg
Cara pale 10300 g
Crystal 100200 g
Bisquit malt150 g

Hops
tettnanger 3.8 alpha 20 grams @ first wort
tettnanger 3.8 alpha25 grams @ 60 minutes
tettnanger 3.8 alpha15 grams @ 20 minutes
tettnanger 3.8 alpha10 grams @ 0 minutes
Cascade 4.8 alpha20 grams @ 0 minutes

Special:
Gypsum .25 tsp @ 60 minutes
Irish moss1 tsp @ 5 minutes

My lord! How big was that batch? I count 113 kg of malt

 

[RichBenn]

Thanks for this recipe. On my first try, I had to put US-05 in as the expired 1469 did not take off. Got rave reviews from someone back from the UK recently, but they are not critical beer drinkers, so....

Try two is in the works. Had to modify the malt and hops slightly, but I'm eager to taste the 1469. I'm doing the "start ferment on the cold side" and then warm up after it slows. I'm not a fan of over the top esters, so this will probably get me where I want it.

 

[newkirk]

I brewed this (scaled to 1 gallon jug that I use for pilot/experimental batches) a few months back, primarily because I had a pouch of 1469 getting on in age. (1500ml starter, 10% into fermenter, 90% archived in the fridge in a mason jar)

What a great choice.

Only water adjustment on top of bottled spring water (my well water is nasty hard, refuse to try brewing with it) was gypsum.

The 9 bottles I got from that batch sat for about 3 weeks, then all but one were gone in a day. As soon as I have a 2.5 gallon corny coming free I plan to fill it with some of this, and may reserve that keg just for this, or a rotation of this and a patersbier.

It's a win when you can brew something drinkable as a lawnmower beer that is this tasty. (like many of us here, I suspect, most of my beers are fairly large, or bigger)

j

 

[oldwhiskers]

I brewed 5 gallons of this today. I hope this is something similar to what I drank in London and Glasgow, I definitely drank my share spending a year in Scotland.

 

[rsquared]

Not quite 72 hours in, but looking great and smelling just as good! I really love the aromas 1469 puts off.