Hops Britannia
Styles with heavy hops are proving to be few and far between, so I was looking forward to this one. This recipe used 1.5 oz of Northdown hops at 60 minutes as well as both classic English hops: 1.5 oz of Fuggles at 10 minutes and 1.5 oz of East Kent Goldings at flame out. The grain bill included a base of 9.5# of Maris Otter, 9 oz each of wheat malt, biscuit malt, and caramel 40, plus 6 oz of caramel 120. A standard mash yielded a starting gravity of 1.050. We used London Ale Yeast (WLP 013) for fermentation.
This one pours a beautiful orange color. It has an earthy aroma rather than the bright citrus of many well-hopped beers. The flavor is nicely balanced with equal amounts of sweet and bitter. The bitterness is pure for lack of a better term. It begins sharp and assertive then fades into a dry finish. There aren’t a lot of extraneous descriptors of fruits or flowers to go with this; it’s simply bitter – but not in a bad way. The lack of overpowering hops means the malt can actually come through rather than being completely buried. I still prefer a big, bold American style IPA but the English approach has serious merit, too. The balance makes for an altogether different experience.