An Extra Special Bitter for any season

A friend of mine (B.) shared his recipe with me 3 or 4 years ago and, despite my best efforts, I haven’t managed to ruin it yet! This is the beer that I keep coming back to; its easy to brew, easy to ferment, and easy to enjoy. I have made some (minor) modifications to the recipe to account for the differences in equipment available to B. (all-grain) and myself (partial mash). Despite these changes, I believe it to be true in spirit.

I’ve named this recipe the “St. Louis Special” as a play on the beer style and in honor of B.’s hometown.

Ingredients

Class Amt Ingredient
fermentables 3.0 lbs German Munich malt (crushed)
fermentables 2.5 lbs English pale malt (crushed)
fermentables 0.5 lbs Breiss Carapils malt (crushed)
fermentables 3.15 lbs Malliar Malts Gold (LME)
hops 1.0 oz US Fuggle hops
hops 1.0 oz UK Northdown hops
hops 1.0 oz German Perle hops
yeast 1 packet Safale S-04

Steeping Grains

  • heat 1.5 gal water to 165 F
  • add grains, steep for 1 hr, maintaining temp at 155 F
  • start heating sparge water (1.5 gal) to 170 F

Sparge

  • after 1 hr steep: remove pot from heat, remove grains from wert, place into strainer above pot.
  • sparge grains and ensure that water has drained completely
  • return pot to heat.
  • while waiting for boil, add LME stirring thoroughly to avoid burns on bottom of pot (yikes!)
  • bring total volume up to 4 gal with tap water
  • bring to boil

Boil

  • once boiling: add Northdown and Perle hops
  • boil for 1 hr
  • towards the end of the boil, prepare yeast starter if using dry yeast

Coldbreak

  • remove from heat, shut down burner
  • add: Fuggle hops, 1 tsp Irish Moss (optional)
  • move pot to ice bath (sink), add ice, water to bath. Do not add ice directly to the wort. Do you want contaminated beer, because that’s how you get contaminated beer!
  • stir pot to encourage sedimentation towards middle of pot
  • rapidly chill to room temp.

Rack beer and pitch yeast

  • transfer wort to sanatized 5 gal fermenter
  • pitch yeast
  • bring to final volume with boiled and cooled water
  • gravimetric measurements
  • add blowoff tube

Cleanup

  • don’t forget the homebrew. You’ve earned it.