Brewing an English bitter at home for easy drinking

What a bitter is

Bitter is the traditional pub ale of England. It comes in a few strengths. Ordinary bitter is usually around 3% to 3.8% ABV. Best bitter sits around 3.8% to 4.6%. Strong bitter or ESB goes higher. All share a copper to amber colour, a bready and caramel malt flavour, an earthy or floral English hop character and a firm but not harsh bitterness.

The name is a little misleading. A bitter is not aggressively bitter by modern IPA standards. It was simply more bitter than the mild ales it was once drunk alongside. Our English bitter guide covers the history.

A best bitter recipe

For 20 litres at an original gravity of about 1.042 and roughly 4% ABV:

• Maris Otter or another English pale ale malt: 3.5 kg (92%)
• Crystal malt, around 100 to 150 EBC: 0.25 kg (7%)
• Chocolate malt or a dark crystal: 0.04 kg (1%), optional, for colour
• Hops: about 30 to 35 IBU. Use East Kent Goldings or Fuggle, or a mix, mostly at 60 minutes with a small addition at 15 minutes and at flameout.
• Yeast: an English ale strain such as S-04 or a liquid English strain

Mash at 66 to 68 °C for a medium body. Bitter is a low gravity beer, so body matters. Our guide to crystal and caramel malts explains how the crystal adds both colour and body.

English hops and English yeast

The hops give a bitter its character. East Kent Goldings brings a soft floral, honey and spice note. Fuggle is earthier and more woody. Neither tastes of citrus or tropical fruit. That is the point. If you swap in a modern American hop, you get a pleasant pale ale, not a bitter.

English yeast matters just as much. English strains leave a little more body, a gentle fruitiness and often clear well in the bottle. Ferment at 18 to 20 °C. English yeast pushed into the mid twenties, easy to do in an Indian summer, turns from gently fruity to estery and a little hot. In a 4% beer there is nothing to cover it. A water bath with frozen bottles for the first four days is worth the effort. Some English strains produce a little diacetyl, a buttery note. A small amount is acceptable in the style, but give the yeast a couple of days at the end of fermentation to clean it up.

Water helps too. A water profile with moderate sulphate sharpens the hop bitterness, which is traditional in some English brewing towns. If your water is soft, a little gypsum in the mash adds that crispness.

Soft carbonation

This is where many homebrewed bitters go wrong. A cask bitter in an English pub is served with very low carbonation, around 1.0 to 1.5 volumes of CO2, which gives a soft, smooth texture. A bottled bitter usually has more, but still far less than a lager.

For bottles, aim for about 1.8 to 2.0 volumes. That means priming with roughly 3 to 4 g of sugar per litre, much less than for a pale ale. Our guide to carbonation levels by style explains the numbers. Overcarbonated bitter feels thin and prickly. Gently carbonated bitter feels round and full. You notice the malt.

Serving

Serve at cellar temperature, about 10 to 13 °C. Too cold and the malt and hop flavours vanish. In an Indian summer that means taking the bottle out of the fridge 15 to 20 minutes before you pour. Pour gently into a straight or nonic pint glass so a modest head forms.

A bitter suits food that is flavourful but not fiery: chicken cutlets, a mutton chop, shepherd's pie or a plate of pakoras. Very hot curries tend to overwhelm it.

Why it is worth brewing

A good bitter takes skill precisely because it is understated. There is no big alcohol or hop load to hide behind, so balance, fermentation and carbonation all show. Learning to brew one well teaches restraint. That lesson carries across to every other style, including the big ones.