#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.

#24 Belgian Single Tasting

A- deep orange to amber hue with a one inch white head of tiny bubbles

S- spice up front, big clove and a little cardamom, some fruity banana and coconut

T- similar to the nose, cloves and allspice with overripe fruit

M- thin and highly carbonated. A touch too highly carbonated.

O- not terrible considering this was an unplanned second rubbings beer. That said the yeast was clearly stressed and gave very less than ideal flavors. Drinkable but not super appealing. Looks pretty at least.