Poured a pitcher of Ordinary Bitter last night for the New England Patriots opening season on Monday Night Football.

Even though I only put it on the gas last Friday night, and its only at 50F (per the co-usage of the kegorator for a lager ferment at the moment)…it was very nicely carbed up.  Actually I like my beers on the slightly low side of carbonation.  This came out of the tap at about 2.0 volumes of CO2.  It was smooth and only mildly “spritzy”.  It reminded me of cask ale, which was a very nice way to enjoy this beer.

The ordinary bitter recipe seems pretty good.  I need a little more tasting to determine what changes to make.  I thought the touch of chocolate malt I used would make it too dark, but its actually not as dark as I feared.  In fact the taste was strongly malty and slightly nutty.  Overall, I think the malt bill hits it just right.

The beer does suffer though from the weak-ass 3.5% AA US Goldings I used.  I need to source some EKG to make it right, and bump up the IBUs a bit.  I am sure that the flavor differences between true EKG and the US Goldings are whats giving me too much of an earthy character and not enough of herbal spicy thing the EKG usually deliver.  The norther brewer for bittering seemed to be fine, just needed more I think.

The hop profile is sort of leaning towards the Mild Ale category, but it doesn’t have the malt backbone for that.  Oh well live and learn…or maybe its brew and learn.

BREW ON!