A helpful reader recently pointed out to me that my “Make Your Best Bitter” piece didn’t really provide a recipe for any particular English Pale Ale. Fair enough, then—let’s talk about the Cadillac of English Pale/Golden ales, the Extra Special Bitter (ESB)! This is one of my favorite styles, and when I want to know if a brewery is on the right track to making good things, it’s one of the “acid test” beers that I use to find out. And since I just saw a friend post a picture of the beer that this beer is based on—a certain butterscotch-heavy Oxfordshire darker-than-pale English Pale Ale—it seemed like too good a coincidence to ignore.
Style
Some people (looking in the mirror) often get into fights over what is and is not an ESB. On the one hand, “Extra Special Bitter” is simply another English Pale Ale—it just happens to be the one that’s strongest and may contain a bit more malt flavor. Others contend that “ESB” as a style is now and forever tied to the eponymous Fuller’s version, with its higher ABV, richer and fruitier flavor, and stronger hops presence. I’m not going to get into it, but suffice to say that most of what we consider “ESB” is not in the Fuller’s vein, for better or worse. The style is distinctly English, though, with significant malt complexity (though usually of the lower-Lovibond variety), a fairly high IBU-to-gravity ratio, and English flavor/aroma hops and yeast strains. This is also a style that benefits from some “water awareness,” as many examples have not only high-ish bittering but a flinty character to the bitterness that makes it seem higher than it actually is.
Ingredients
This is a pretty simple recipe, really. As the saying goes, “the better the fish, the lighter the sauce,” and the key here is in getting good, authentic ingredients. Thomas Fawcett all the way for me on the grist: Eight pounds (3.6 kg) of Maris Otter and ½ pound (227 g) each of Fawcett 45L and 65L. In lighter bitters, I generally go with the Fawcett 45L and Victory, but here I want the richness to come through, not just the toast. You may also hear, on occasion, that you should be adding Lyle’s Golden Syrup or other invert sugars to your ESBs; I won’t tell you not to, but I’ll say that I’ve experimented with them and never noticed any difference whatsoever. These three malts should more than do the trick and should get you to an ABV of about 5.3%.