[ravenwater]

Probably a dunkel weissbier.  I could never quite seem to get the yeast flavor right it was either too much clover too much banana and it just never never worked out. Going to try it again sometime.

I also had trouble with an Irish Red for quite a while and finally asked a prober a friend of mine why his with so much better than mine and he told me what the secret ingredient was. I'm not going to reveal it because that's a trade secret and I told him I wouldn't do it. ironically I took my ESB down to him and he said "boy your ESB is better than mine" so we brewed it in his brewery and it sells really well there. So you give and you take!

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Oh Goose, now you've got me wondering about that secret ingredient!

[jeffy]

Probably a dunkel weissbier.  I could never quite seem to get the yeast flavor right it was either too much clover too much banana and it just never never worked out. Going to try it again sometime.

I also had trouble with an Irish Red for quite a while and finally asked a prober a friend of mine why his with so much better than mine and he told me what the secret ingredient was. I'm not going to reveal it because that's a trade secret and I told him I wouldn't do it. ironically I took my ESB down to him and he said "boy your ESB is better than mine" so we brewed it in his brewery and it sells really well there. So you give and you take!

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Oh Goose, now you've got me wondering about that secret ingredient!

It's not nice to tease.

[Descardeci]

For me the most elusive has been a British bitter. Go figure! I've brewed the style several times, at least as many as any other style I've attempted. I say I've struggled the most with it because although I've made some that were pretty spot-on for style and had one do well in competition but I've tweaked recipes and even tried to emulate a commercial (British) example in an effort to get one that's "wow, that's amazing!" and more often than not I've failed to make the beer I imagined I was going to. Few British brands are available as imports and they're often a bit stale off the shelves, and I find most brew pub examples are an American concept of what an "ESB" (strong) might be, not really what I'm looking for, so I want to brew a craveable version of my own. I've played with water profiles, grain bill, and tried several yeasts and made ones I've enjoyed but not one that totally nails what I'm trying to achieve. That white whale is still out there and the search will continue.

I had the same problem, I love english, irish and scottish beer, but never did one good, and there no good comercial exemple here, but I finaly try to go back to the basics, and did 1 best bitter and a english porter really well, now have another in the fermetation, and soon a scottish, after all done gonna brew 2 more english beer, what worked for me is try and error, and begin simple maris otter, a good english yeast and don't go too crazy on the hops, don't try to go for a ESB right away, go for a bitter, or even a mild or golden ale, some more forgiven style. if you want I can pass to you the recipe

[ravenwater]

For me the most elusive has been a British bitter. Go figure! I've brewed the style several times, at least as many as any other style I've attempted. I say I've struggled the most with it because although I've made some that were pretty spot-on for style and had one do well in competition but I've tweaked recipes and even tried to emulate a commercial (British) example in an effort to get one that's "wow, that's amazing!" and more often than not I've failed to make the beer I imagined I was going to. Few British brands are available as imports and they're often a bit stale off the shelves, and I find most brew pub examples are an American concept of what an "ESB" (strong) might be, not really what I'm looking for, so I want to brew a craveable version of my own. I've played with water profiles, grain bill, and tried several yeasts and made ones I've enjoyed but not one that totally nails what I'm trying to achieve. That white whale is still out there and the search will continue.

I had the same problem, I love english, irish and scottish beer, but never did one good, and there no good comercial exemple here, but I finaly try to go back to the basics, and did 1 best bitter and a english porter really well, now have another in the fermetation, and soon a scottish, after all done gonna brew 2 more english beer, what worked for me is try and error, and begin simple maris otter, a good english yeast and don't go too crazy on the hops, don't try to go for a ESB right away, go for a bitter, or even a mild or golden ale, some more forgiven style. if you want I can pass to you the recipe

Sure, if you want to pass along your recipe that'd be great - either post here or via message. I have my Irish red ale and my British dark mild pretty well dialed in so going back for another try at a bitter is in my plans. I like a lower ABV beer so want to do as you say - just make a simple bitter, no ESB or so forth.

[Descardeci]

For me the most elusive has been a British bitter. Go figure! I've brewed the style several times, at least as many as any other style I've attempted. I say I've struggled the most with it because although I've made some that were pretty spot-on for style and had one do well in competition but I've tweaked recipes and even tried to emulate a commercial (British) example in an effort to get one that's "wow, that's amazing!" and more often than not I've failed to make the beer I imagined I was going to. Few British brands are available as imports and they're often a bit stale off the shelves, and I find most brew pub examples are an American concept of what an "ESB" (strong) might be, not really what I'm looking for, so I want to brew a craveable version of my own. I've played with water profiles, grain bill, and tried several yeasts and made ones I've enjoyed but not one that totally nails what I'm trying to achieve. That white whale is still out there and the search will continue.

I had the same problem, I love english, irish and scottish beer, but never did one good, and there no good comercial exemple here, but I finaly try to go back to the basics, and did 1 best bitter and a english porter really well, now have another in the fermetation, and soon a scottish, after all done gonna brew 2 more english beer, what worked for me is try and error, and begin simple maris otter, a good english yeast and don't go too crazy on the hops, don't try to go for a ESB right away, go for a bitter, or even a mild or golden ale, some more forgiven style. if you want I can pass to you the recipe

Sure, if you want to pass along your recipe that'd be great - either post here or via message. I have my Irish red ale and my British dark mild pretty well dialed in so going back for another try at a bitter is in my plans. I like a lower ABV beer so want to do as you say - just make a simple bitter, no ESB or so forth.

I have no problem passing here, just some malt you can trade for english one, here the only one I can find is the maris (I use metric, so gonna convert to imperial, but you can change the little things to get a better results)
Malts
7,5 lb of maris otter
10,5 oz of menaly, I used swaen
7,05 oz of caramunich I weyermann
3,5 oz of biscuit malt, when I was buying the malt was there only honey biscuit of the swaen so I used, and it was really good

Hops
Anyone neutral hops for bitter, I used warrior 12%, 0,7 oz in the 60 minute addition, but anything to give 30-35 IBU is a go
Northdown 1 oz + Pilgrim 1 oz both in the last 2 minutes, I didn't have a chiller plate so my cooling process is slow, if you chill too fast, you can put on the 5 minute mark

Yeast
London III, but I want more esther in the beer and less attenuation, so I change to M15 emperial ale yeast, if I don't like gonna go with london ESB
I mashed a little high 152-154, so ended in the first batch with 3,8% of ABV, which was nice
Cheer mate, good brewing

[Northern_Brewer]

For me the most elusive has been a British bitter.

Things foreign brewers usually get wrong on British beers :

The water is way more mineralised than they think - calcium should be 100ppm as an absolute minimum, don't be afraid of sulphate at 400ppm or more (at least for northern styles, you might go as low as 250ppm SO4 down south. See eg the bottom of this page from one of the main UK lab service providers, although the header is shifted one column to the left).

Serving temperature - below cellar temperature (55F) it just kills the flavour, I like to serve at about 50-52F so that it comes up through the sweet spot as I drink a pint.

Overcarbonation - British beers are a delicate balance between all the different components, and too much CO2 just screws up the balance. And cask/bottle carbonation just gives you a finer quality of bubble (qv champagne).

Too much crystal - I'd regard Fuller's as on the crystal heavy side, and they only use 7.2% of light crystal in their main beers. Northern beers tend to use half that, and eg Boddington's (the real one, not the export version you guys see) has no crystal at all. For some reason foreign brewers think that there should be way more crystal and the result is a gloopy mess. On a related note :

Be aware that British brewers routinely colour their beers with brewer's caramel, so don't add speciality malts just to hit a colour target. Flavour is way more important than colour, you should never add flavour ingredients for colour purposes.

Use British ingredients, in particular British crystal malt is not the same as US caramel malt.

BU:GU - generally in the 0.7-0.9 range, towards the lower end in the South, towards the higher end up north (0.85 would be my personal taste)

Those are the musts. As a general pointer, I'd start with a best of 4.2% ABV as about the sweetspot - sub 4% bitters are much harder to do really well.

And although I have a massive personal bias in favour of Goldings over Fuggles, I would still argue that a 100% Goldings beer is probably the best place to start for newbies - they're classic, consistent and should be easy to get hold of. Then you can start experimenting - First Gold would be a good second choice, personally I love a bit of Bramling Cross, Bullion, or Jester mixed in with my Goldings.

Do be generous with your hops, and do dry hop (as British brewers/publicans have been doing for at least 200 years). Hops here generally come in 100g packets and I tend to just use a pack in a 20 litre batch (ie 5g/l or 3.3oz in 5 US gallons) although it is a little extravagant.

Yeast can be the difficult one - it's much easier here as it's relatively easy to scavenge dregs from pub casks or there's a few container-conditioned options in supermarkets. And there's Brewlab when they're in the mood to send out slopes to homebrewers. Although S-04 and Nottingham (or eg Windsor/S-33 followed by Notty for flocculation) are widely used by modern microbreweries, they don't have the character of the house strains of the regional breweries. I've not used it but it seems that Imperial A09 Pub has a lot of the marmalade character of Fuller's yeast (which WLP002 and 1968 lack). Lots of people like 1469, I'll put in a shout for WLP041 Pacific Ale - despite its name it's a British yeast that gives the easy drinkability which British beer should have.

Aim for a quick, healthy fermentation and don't allow the yeast clean up after itself - see this thread on HBT.

British beers are all about balance - water, malt, hops, yeast, CO2 and alcohol all in balance with no one aspect dominating. If you have problems, then you need to adjust the process or recipe in the direction that restores balance.

[BrewBama]

Use British ingredients, in particular British crystal malt is not the same as US caramel malt.

Great pointers. I’ll pile on to this point:

I believe the country of origin matters because the different barley variety used to make the malt as well as growing region and environmental conditions produces a certain flavor inherent to the style.  British crystal malt and US caramel malt are probably produced very nearly the same way ...but the starting raw material is so different that the results are different.

IOW Pils malt made from American 2-row is different than Pils malt made from German 2-row. Likewise, American Pale and British Pale taste different which I attribute to barley variety. The other malts in a particular maltster’s portfolio follow suit.


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[Northern_Brewer]

British crystal malt and US caramel malt are probably produced very nearly the same way 

It's more that British crystal are made in a roaster (as is typical in most of Europe), whereas in the US they tend to be kilned (but some producers use a roaster). Roasting tends to produce a more even "cook", whereas kilning produces a mix of darker and lighter grains of about the same colour but different flavour.

Likewise, American Pale and British Pale taste different which I attribute to barley variety.

Well obviously there's the 6- and 2-row thing, yes variety and terroir and house style do play a part - but in that particular case the biggest difference is that British maltsters just tend to kiln their pale malts a bit darker than in the US.

Just got some Warminster floor-malted crystal/brown/chocolate, which I'm looking forward to playing with.

PS I also meant to say, British brewers tend to aim for a slightly lower finishing pH than in the US, Murphys suggest 3.7-4.1 for cask beer.

[ravenwater]

I appreciate all the input above regarding nailing down a British bitter, and it confirms for me that I've generally leaned in the right direction when working up my bitters - -
My starting point is always British base malt, usually Maris (I'm fond of Warminster's floor malted Maris which I can mail order)
I buy British crystal malts which my local shop carries
I shoot for balance which in part means not loading too much crystal on
I have largely used Goldings and Fuggles hops, sometimes alone, sometimes in combination, though have additionally thrown in something with a bit of orange flavor/aroma at times because I like that combo.
I shoot for ABV under 4.5%
I always carbonate on the low end
I keg condition
I serve at "cellar temperatures"
I've found I like a more minerally water profile ("flinty" flavor some have termed it) in a bitter and have gone to adding more gypsum, thus increasing sulfates)
Where this puts me I think is to look next at further water mineral manipulation and look back at what may be commonalities in my various bitter recipes that I've felt were more to my liking. Also I will take up some of the suggestions on yeast to try. One thing that jumped out for me was the suggestion to not let the beers clean themselves up at the end of fermentation - part of what I love about a good bitter is the deep estery qualities including sometimes a bit a diacetyl and I'm thinking this strategy might have a positive impact there.
My pursuit of a better bitter will continue!

[Descardeci]

For me the most elusive has been a British bitter.

Things foreign brewers usually get wrong on British beers :

The water is way more mineralised than they think - calcium should be 100ppm as an absolute minimum, don't be afraid of sulphate at 400ppm or more (at least for northern styles, you might go as low as 250ppm SO4 down south. See eg the bottom of this page from one of the main UK lab service providers, although the header is shifted one column to the left).

Serving temperature - below cellar temperature (55F) it just kills the flavour, I like to serve at about 50-52F so that it comes up through the sweet spot as I drink a pint.

Overcarbonation - British beers are a delicate balance between all the different components, and too much CO2 just screws up the balance. And cask/bottle carbonation just gives you a finer quality of bubble (qv champagne).

Too much crystal - I'd regard Fuller's as on the crystal heavy side, and they only use 7.2% of light crystal in their main beers. Northern beers tend to use half that, and eg Boddington's (the real one, not the export version you guys see) has no crystal at all. For some reason foreign brewers think that there should be way more crystal and the result is a gloopy mess. On a related note :

Be aware that British brewers routinely colour their beers with brewer's caramel, so don't add speciality malts just to hit a colour target. Flavour is way more important than colour, you should never add flavour ingredients for colour purposes.

Use British ingredients, in particular British crystal malt is not the same as US caramel malt.

BU:GU - generally in the 0.7-0.9 range, towards the lower end in the South, towards the higher end up north (0.85 would be my personal taste)

Those are the musts. As a general pointer, I'd start with a best of 4.2% ABV as about the sweetspot - sub 4% bitters are much harder to do really well.

And although I have a massive personal bias in favour of Goldings over Fuggles, I would still argue that a 100% Goldings beer is probably the best place to start for newbies - they're classic, consistent and should be easy to get hold of. Then you can start experimenting - First Gold would be a good second choice, personally I love a bit of Bramling Cross, Bullion, or Jester mixed in with my Goldings.

Do be generous with your hops, and do dry hop (as British brewers/publicans have been doing for at least 200 years). Hops here generally come in 100g packets and I tend to just use a pack in a 20 litre batch (ie 5g/l or 3.3oz in 5 US gallons) although it is a little extravagant.

Yeast can be the difficult one - it's much easier here as it's relatively easy to scavenge dregs from pub casks or there's a few container-conditioned options in supermarkets. And there's Brewlab when they're in the mood to send out slopes to homebrewers. Although S-04 and Nottingham (or eg Windsor/S-33 followed by Notty for flocculation) are widely used by modern microbreweries, they don't have the character of the house strains of the regional breweries. I've not used it but it seems that Imperial A09 Pub has a lot of the marmalade character of Fuller's yeast (which WLP002 and 1968 lack). Lots of people like 1469, I'll put in a shout for WLP041 Pacific Ale - despite its name it's a British yeast that gives the easy drinkability which British beer should have.

Aim for a quick, healthy fermentation and don't allow the yeast clean up after itself - see this thread on HBT.

British beers are all about balance - water, malt, hops, yeast, CO2 and alcohol all in balance with no one aspect dominating. If you have problems, then you need to adjust the process or recipe in the direction that restores balance.

Thanks for the input, I'm still try to get a good english ale in my beers, sadly I can't find british malts where I live, I use swaen, for yeast now my sisters gonna bring for me ringwood, west yorkshire and irish ale yeast (wyeast) from her trip in the EU

[Wilbur]

Use British ingredients, in particular British crystal malt is not the same as US caramel malt.

Great pointers. I’ll pile on to this point:

I believe the country of origin matters because the different barley variety used to make the malt as well as growing region and environmental conditions produces a certain flavor inherent to the style.  British crystal malt and US caramel malt are probably produced very nearly the same way ...but the starting raw material is so different that the results are different.

IOW Pils malt made from American 2-row is different than Pils malt made from German 2-row. Likewise, American Pale and British Pale taste different which I attribute to barley variety. The other malts in a particular maltster’s portfolio follow suit.


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To emphasize, here's the AMBA's 2016 recommended "Two Row" variety list:

AAC Synergy (2015)
ABI Voyager (2014)
AC Metcalfe (2005)
CDC Copeland (2007)
CDC Meredith (2013)
Charles* (2009)
Conlon (2000)
Conrad (2007)
Endeavor* (2015)
Expedition (2013)
Harrington (1989)
Hockett (2010)
Merit (2000)
Merit 57 (2010)
Moravian 37 (2010)
Moravian 69 (2010)
ND Genesis (2016)
Pinnacle (2011)
Scarlett (2008)
Wintmalt* (2013)

Could you tell the difference between pale ale Endeavor and pale ale Pinnacle? No idea. But the Brits seem to get a lot of traction hawking specific varieties.

https://www.canr.msu.edu/uploads/234/78941/Malting_Barley_Production_in_North_America_-_Scott_Heisel.pdf

[denny]

I'm not familar with the AMBA.  Could you enlighten me.  I see that several barley varities I'm familiar with aren't on the list.

[dbeechum]

American Malting Barley Association. They produce an annual list of recommended malting varieties to farmers

(https://ambainc.org/updated-202-amba-recommended-malting-barley-varieties/)

I'm not familar with the AMBA.  Could you enlighten me.  I see that several barley varities I'm familiar with aren't on the list.

[denny]

American Malting Barley Association. They produce an annual list of recommended malting varieties to farmers

(https://ambainc.org/updated-202-amba-recommended-malting-barley-varieties/)

I'm not familar with the AMBA.  Could you enlighten me.  I see that several barley varities I'm familiar with aren't on the list.

Yeah that's what I figured.  I'm pretty sure Full Pint and Violetta were around in 2016, but you know what my memory is like.

[Northern_Brewer]

Could you tell the difference between pale ale Endeavor and pale ale Pinnacle? No idea. But the Brits seem to get a lot of traction hawking specific varieties.

But that's far less true of modern varieties on our equivalent of the AMBA list, which are bred primarily for agronomy and to be "good enough" from a malting and flavour POV. There's a bit of interest lately in breeding for flavour but nobody's going to get too excited about varieties on the current list, and very few people could tell the difference between say Propino and Laureate. Flagon maybe, it's one of the tastier ones, but that's unusual.

It's only really Chevallier, Hana, Otter and Golden Promise that are worth seeking out on flavour grounds - but the latter two were both released within a year of each other over 50 years ago, so belong to another age in agriculture terms.