Loosely based off of Jamil's BCS recipe.

6 gallon batch (post boil volume), est 75% efficiency

7 lbs Maris Otter
8 oz Crystal 80
4 oz Pale Chocolate

60" 160° Mash (Same as I use for my mild)
Might just do a 60" boil

Hopped as follows:
1.2 oz Willamette/Styrian Goldings @ 60"
0.5 oz Willamette/Styrian Goldings @ 30"
0.5 oz Willamette/Styrian Goldings @ 0-5" (haven't decided exactly)

Ferment with Wyeast 1968 ESB at 66-68°

Should make for an excellent, quick pipeline filler

Looks nice!! pretty close to my Red Hook ESB clone, no chocolate for me but there is some biscuit and carapils. Also using the same yeast and willamette and tettnang.

Oh right, the numbers!: 1.036 OG, 30 IBUs (Rager), 12° L.

Pale chocolate is a lot lighter and less roasty than chocolate malt, so I'm thinking it'll work well in this recipe.

I'll give you a personal thought on Ordinary Bitter. This is my two cents and should, in no way, be taken as gospel.

What comes to mind is in the name "ordinary". Not "extra"ordinary.

So for me, the idea is to keep it simple. The flavor should be simple too. Not to over the top with flavor malts (save that for your Special/Premium Bitter). Not in your face with hops, but enough that differentiates it from some weird underhopped thing.

Imagine if you went into a bar, had only a couple bucks on you. You could get 1pint of the "super awesome Russian Imperial India Pale Ale" or maybe 2-3 of some "Bitter". You can get 2-3 pints because the brewer used "ordinary" ingredients, and threw it together for the guy that wants more than 1 with little money on him.

Now, even though it's all "ordinary" it doesn't mean there is lack of flavor. It should have plenty of flavor to make you want to have another. And then maybe one more, because you just can't get enough of that flavor.


I say it looks pretty good. But I don't know your tastes.
Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback, Bob!

Based on Bob's feedback on another forum, I'm considering dropping the mash temp a few degrees, maybe to 155° for this one, to see how I like it and adjust from there. Because, unlike the mild, which is a brown ale and should havea decent amount of body to it, this is a pale ale, and should be eminently drinkable.

Great post Bob and I agree. Sometimes in the past I have brewed
session like beers with low amounts of pale chocolate or some
other dark specialty or crystal malt for background flavors and
they always turned out nice. One thing I have learned is you
can screw up a beer easily by overdoing it but if you err on
the light end and that goes for bitterness and malt a good beer
will be the result every time. I like to creep things up on
the rebrew.

Oh, and I like your interpretation of Ordinary in the name as well, especially given that the next step up is supposed to be a brewery's Best Bitter (aka Special or Premium, as you mentioned)...in many cases, even better than their ESB.

So I think I'll work on this and a Special/Best Bitter recipe as well.

My next is a Premium Bitter. It has a more hops and some more "expensive" grains.

I tend to focus on this style a lot. I prefer the Premium/Best Bitter style. My first brewing shirt was a Best Bitter.

Going to get this started in a bit. Having a leisurely breakfast, then will get my strike water heating and measure out my grains and get the brewday started.

Grains are weighed out and ground, and the strike water is heating. I guess I'll go preheat my mash tun with hot tap water now.

Since our hot tap water gets up to around 145° sometimes, it's well suited to this sort of task.