Description:

A good beer with a deep malty taste, a dense, lasting head and a wonderful reddish-black colour---but otherwise totally unlike OP. So---back to the drawing board...

P.S. My last batch of "basic bitter" was an accidental experiment in altered mashing conditions: I let the temperature rise to 75C in the first 30 minutes, so although I got a good conversion, a lot of this was unfermentable (due to excessive destruction of the beta amylase, which produces maltose from dextrins). So the starting gravity was 1.048, but finished at 1.020. As Conn Copas noted in HBD 909, it is thus possible to produce a relatively low alcohol beer which doesn't taste too weak. In fact, it's rather good, IMHO.....

Ingredients:

• 7 pounds, crushed pale malt
• 2 pounds, wheat malt
• 4 ounces, chocolate malt (for reddish hue)
• 4 ounces, roast barley
• 4 ounces of Fuggles hops (timing same as in "English Bitter"

Procedure:

Source: Andy Phillips