Frank's Black Label Bitter

Source: Brian Connors
Recipe added: 05/08/99
Email: connorbd@yahoo.com

This brew was created as a birthday present for (and named after) my father, who wound up in the hospital in February '99 for two months after an unpleasant encounter with a bus. It actually does have a black label (patterned loosely after the one used by Bass for Draught Bass), though I would have made it "Blue Label" because of my father's occupation (police officer) if I had a color printer. This is an excellent session beer, an ordinary bitter with maybe just enough kick to push it into the best bitter range even with the sugar. Do not use white sugar in this recipe; the brown sugar is intended to add a vanishing hint of molasses flavor and cannot be substituted.

Specifics

Recipe type: Extract
Batch Size: 5
Starting Gravity: 1040
Finishing Gravity:
Time in Boil: 60 min
Primary Fermentation: 1 week
Secondary Fermentation: n/a

Ingredients:

5 lb pale malt extract syrup
.5 lb light brown sugar or turbinado sugar
.5 lb 20L crystal malt
1 oz Bullion hops (bittering)
.5 oz Willamette hops (flavor)
.5 oz Goldings or Challenger hops (flavor)
.25 oz Willamette or Kent Goldings hops (aroma or dry hop)
1 tsp gypsum
dash MgSO4
.5 tsp Irish moss (rehydrated)
Wyeast 1098 British Ale yeast

Procedure:

Crush crystal malt and allow to steep in 2.5 gal treated water in brewpot; remove when water boils. Add malt syrup and sugar; add bittering hops when water boils again. Boil for 60 minutes, adding flavor hops after 45 minutes and Irish moss with aroma hops (if not dry-hopping) after 55 minutes. Pitch with 1 pt of Wyeast 1098 starter and ferment. If bottling, prime with .5 c glucose; if serving on draft, use .25 c and dry-hop with the last hop addition instead of using it in the kettle.

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