Begin Brewing!

Finished bottle with simulated vintage label A couple of years ago, I received Robert Pattinson's book The Home Brewer's Guide to Vintage Beer . as a gift from a family member.  The first of the recipes that caught my attention (and I really can't tell you why) was the 1933 Lees Bitter recipe.  I tried to brew it once, earlier in my brewing career, and ended up tossing it out because the caps I used didn't seal properly on the bottles. This left the beer flat and oxidized.  This is my second go at the recipe.  It is a simple recipe, the ingredients aren't too expensive, and the process straightforward.  It also sounds like a fairly easy beer to drink, a good one for the upcoming summer months. I recently lost a whole lot of my homebrew  to an infection that went undiscovered for months.  I'm fairly certain the infection came from a bottling wand used on the infected batches. I replaced it and used the new one to bottle my recent Belgian Dubbel....

The finished bitter, bottled and labeled Another style I've never brewed, but always wanted to, is the standard English Bitter. This is a low-alcohol, slightly bitter, session beer enjoyed in many British pubs. I started with a bit of research on the style. I found two good articles, one in Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine , and one from BYO Magazine .  From these articles, I got some recommendations for formulating my own recipe: For the grist: Maris Otter should be the base malt Victory Malt Crystal Malt (up to 10% of the grist, 40L to 150L, use less if it's darker) Crystal 80-90L is common Special Roast Malt Biscuit Malt Specialty malts are what differentiate one brewer's bitter from another Simple sugars are not recommended, as they will thin out and dry the beer For hops: East Kent Goldings Fuggles Challenger Willamette Northdown BU/GU ratio from 0.7 to 0.9 30 IBUs is about right The bulk of the hopping should occur at the 60-minute mark A...

For Christmas, I received a book of historic beer recipes.  I ordered the ingredients for an English Bitter that looked interesting because it called for Saaz hops instead of one of the more traditional varieties like UK Goldings.  I decided to make it and ordered the necessary ingredients. When brew day came around, I learned that either I had ordered the wrong amount of Pale Malt, or the shop had shipped me less than I ordered.  I had only 8 pounds instead of the 10 required.  I decided to substitute two pounds of CaraVienne malt for the missing two pounds of Pale Malt rather than abort the brewing session.  I also overlooked the invert sugar called for in the recipe, and substituted some Brun Fonce sugar I had on-hand, which is similar. At this point, I realized that what I was making was no longer the ale from the book, but something of my own design.  That being the case, it was no longer the historic beer but something new.  Given that, I d...