Brooklyn Bitter

Today I’m brewing Brooklyn Bitter a strong bitter loosely based Young’s Special London Ale. Brooklyn Bitter will not be as strong as Special London Ale as its intended for draft consumption and it will be a touch darker but I do intend to infuse some of the striking hop character that Special London Ale used to present.

I say Special London Ale used to present a striking hop character as I picked up a bottle yesterday, the first to be marked Bedford, perhaps they have run out of tankered beer from London to blend or have just used up the old labels, and it was a very different beast. It looked like the Special London Ale of old, it smelt like the Special London Ale of old, but on the palate a sweet malt accented beer was revealed with very little bitterness. Where did the IBUs go?! The balance was far more like that of its former neighbour Fullers ESB and certainly not the beer that Michael Jackson described as possibly containing a whole hop garden in every bottle. Anyway I digress.

Brooklyn Bitter’s grist of Maris Otter malt, medium crystal and a touch of patent is currently mashing in burtonised liquor, once it is in the kettle it will be bittered with fuggels with large amounts of goldings being added late in the boil, finally s-04 will be added, hopefully it turns out well.