Recipe: Marble Manchester Bitter

For more about how today’s British brewers are melding punchy hops with cask bitter—creating flavorful, easy-drinking ales greater than the sum of their parts—see Cask Bitter, Refreshed for the 21st Century.

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.042 (10.5°P)
FG: 1.010 (2.6°P)
IBUs: 51
ABV: 4.2%

[PAYWALL] MALT/GRAIN BILL
3.6 lb (1.6 kg) Crisp Extra Pale
3.6 lb (1.6 kg) Crisp Best Ale
5 oz (142 g) Crisp Cara
2.5 oz (71 g) Crisp Light Munich
2 oz (57 g) Crisp Light Crystal 150 (65°L)
0.7 oz (20 g) Crisp Dark Munich

HOPS SCHEDULE
0.9 oz (26 g) each Comet, CTZ, Ekuanot at whirlpool [51 IBUs]

YEAST
Favorite English or neutral ale strain

DIRECTIONS
Mill the grains and mash at 152°F (67°C) for 60 minutes. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, then do a whirlpool step: Stir or recirculate to create a vortex, add the whirlpool hops, and continue to stir/spin for 15 minutes, then allow 15 more minutes to steep. Chill the wort to about 64°F (18°C), aerate the wort, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 64°F (18°C) until the gravity has dropped to about 1.035 (8.8°P), then allow a rise to ambient temperature. Around Day 4, once fermentation is complete and the beer has passed a VDK test, crash to about 36°F (2°C). After 1–2 days, package and carbonate to about 2 volumes of CO₂—or, better yet, rack to a cask and condition.

BREWER’S NOTES
Yeast: We have a proprietary house strain, but any English ale strain will work well, or a more neutral strain such as Chico or S-04. If using either of the latter two, it may be handy to have a copper-based additive, such as Zetolite 63, handy in case of excessive sulfur production.