First off - my apologies for the lapse in posts here..between traveling, "British Beer Festing" (first annual mind you), and pickling assorted veggies...oh and work take up way too much time as well..I've not had much time to pay attention to the blog. Well I'm back at it!
On the heels of our "British Beer Fest" get together I was able to learn alot about my English Bitters, especially the one we served at the party. First off - I'm mashing too low, the last batch had a very thin body, and not much malt presence..which is a problem if your serving a 3.9 % ABV session brew...I guess the only downside to not doing "Imperial IPA Fest" is that after 1 of those bad boys..well...everyone palate is wasted (one step in front of the rest of the body) after the first one..after that well..body goes out the window (not literally of course...that would be the Imperial Barley Wine episode). BUT my point being: with a session beer, you need to make sure that brew is flavorful and noteworthy. I fels that I hit about 65% on both those marks.
SO...
Back to the drawing board today. This Bitter was not exactly planned..but did get alot of inspiration from the fact that I was working this morning on a few sales presentations at 7am and thought "you know what..I should enter into the Sam Adams "Longshot" competition going down at Binnys in a few weeks". Which did two things:
1) Got me thinking that I could throw down an Englishg Bitter today and have it ready by the April 11th due date.
2)That this was the motivation I needed to finsih up work, so that I could start on my recipe for this Bitter.
..thus the name "PPT Bitter" (PowerPoint Bitter)...because nothing makes you bitter like working on PPT's on a Sunday morning. Did you get the cube reference from the picture above??
So there you have it. After a 1.5 hour boil, and single hop additions (fuggles all the way through), and a higher mash temp (155f) I think I've hit my mark. I'll keep ya'll posted!
This week I'll be in Seattle, and am excited to hit up Pike Street Brewing again, as well as Elysian Brewing again..which I'll be taking some motivation from their tea/tree infused beers. I plan on stocking up on Pike Stree Tea and turning out an APA with it..we'll see how all that acidity works out ;)
Cheers!
Brian
Cheers!
Brian
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