Pleasant Pub Pint
Our first entry in category eight! The British base malt was 6.5# of Maris Otter and flavor malts were 6 oz caramel 120 and 3 oz special roast. Run of the mill mash and boil wound up a hair over style with a gravity of 1.042. The hop schedule was nothing but East Kent Goldings: an ounce at sixty minutes and another half ounce each at thirty minutes and one minute. Rounding out the English ingredients was WLP 002 ale yeast.
A nicer golden color than I expected; there’s a bit of caramel in the aroma but it doesn’t come through strongly in the taste. The hop aroma is earthy and perhaps even just a little bit minty. The overall flavor is decidedly more bitter than I expected. In fact, I don’t think there’s much in the way of complementary flavors – starts bitter, finishes bitter. There’s a decent amount of body for such a moderate beer. All in all a pleasant little session beer. I now feel like I have a great idea what kind of bitterness EKGs impart.