#62 Golden Ale and #63 Best Bitter Double Brew Day

Following from my last parti-gyle batch I decided to up the ante with 2 five gallon batches of low gravity beers. While both splits of my last parti-gyle were close to the expected gravities this batch had a much larger swing between the first wort pull and the second runnings/second mash. Both beers were aiming for an approximately 1.045 gravity but the first runoff (Dope Calypso a hoppy American blond) came out closer to 1.051 and the second beer (English Breakfast a would be Best Bitter, now more in the Ordinary Bitter realm) came out with just 4 gallons at just 1.034. I will need to pay closer attention to mash water amounts and sparge rates on future parti-gyles to make sure they come out a little more in line with expectations.

The special bitter. It came out fairly tasty with a nice toasty malt character and plenty of bitterness. I would have liked more citrus and spice from the First Gold hops but it was enjoyable enough. 

I stopped keeping a regular system of tracking my beers with numbers when I began kegging but, depending on how you count a beer as being distinct, this parti-gyle would make for my my 62nd and 63rd brews.

5/2/16

Kegged the bitter with an additional 2 oz of First Gold hops, tasting great so far.

Golden ale has taken on an infection with a bubbly pellicle on the top. Tastes fine so far but needs to be Kegged ASAP, unfortunately I was out of useable kegs.

5/7/16
Kegged the golden ale. Tasting has some definite apple character but not a lot of hop character all around and a touch too high bitterness and toasty malt in the finish. Will probably add keg hops to try to balance the malty/bitter character.

8/18/16
Not sure why I never posted this one, guess I was looking to do full tastings but never got around to it. Both beers kicked in July, only a couple months after kegging. Netiher beer was terrific, and I seem to still have a hard time nailing down these British beers with the exact characteristics I want, but both were enjoyable for what they were and gave a clear impression of what Maris Otter tastes like in a pale beer.

Two of my hobbies collide with a refreshing homebrew while I design and build guitar pedals. This is the "Golden Bitter" but it looks quite dark here between the poor lighting and the haziness from the London Ale III.