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The Finished Extra Strong Bitter I've been trying to work out an Extra Strong Bitter (ESB) recipe for about a year now. My three previous versions did not do all that well with the judges who tried them, for differing reasons. Some felt I had the right bitterness but no "malt complexity" while others felt I had too much hop bitterness. A few even commented that there seemed to be "no hops" in the beer (the same version the two other judges felt had too much hops bitterness). For this fourth version, I've removed Victory Malt from the recipe. I've also removed the Caramel 10L that I used in the previous version. I've added Special B Malt into the mix, dialing back the Caramel 40L and Caramel 65-70L a little. I added some corn to give it some sweetness against the hops. I stuck with Lallemand ESB yeast for this version because I liked the two earlier iterations of this recipe that used it, and disliked the one that didn't. I also decided to g...

I entered my ESB v1.2 at Barley's and received some decent scores (28-33), but there were comments about how it was much too bitter (and one from a third judge saying it had no hops bitterness at all).  I'm inclined to agree with the judges who found it too bitter.  This time around, I want to fix that, so I can put the modified version into competition. Ingredients 3.5 pounds Muntons Maris Otter Malt 12 ounces Caramel 40L 8 ounces Caramel 60L 6 ounces Caramel 10L 6 ounces Victory Malt 0.4 ounces Styrian Goldings @ 6.2% AA (60 min.) 0.4 ounces Styrian Goldings @ 6.2% AA (30 min.) 0.4 ounces Styrian Goldings @ 6.2% AA (10 min.) 1 packet Lallemand ESB Yeast 1/2 vial White Labs Clarity Ferm 3 gallons plus 16 ounces starting water According to the Picobrew recipe crafter, this beer should have the following characteristics: Style: 11.C Strong Bitter Original Gravity (OG):  1.057 SG Final Gravity (FG): 1.017 SG IBUs: 31 SRM: 15 ABV: 5.2% Batch ...