Bitter.

Bitter is one of my favorite styles, but one that seems hard to find good authentic versions of here. What you should see is a copper/amber color, light malty sweetness, and accentuated hop aroma. You will not see the over powering (in my opinion) hops found in American pale ales and IPAs. Alcohol should be in the range of 3-7% abv, with ordinary bitters being on the low end of that range and extra special bitters (ESB) being towards the higher end.
To me the benchmark of the style of ordinary bitter is Coniston Bluebird Bitter. Brewed with Maris Otter and caramel malts and Challenger hops, this one weighs in at 3.6% abv, and if you ever get a chance to try it, take it!
I brewed a bitter using malt extract several months ago, and it was one of the best beers I have made thus far. Now that I have moved on to all grain brewing, I wanted to try to brew a bitter again in this method. I also wanted to do something that would mature quicker. I am fine to have something take a month plus, but at this point, I wanted something I could have in the bottle in 14 days or less.
This recipe comes straight out of Beer Captured by Tess and Mark Szamatulski. It is their clone of Bluebird bitter, though it does end up with a few more alcohol points.
7.5 lb Maris Otter
7 oz medium crystal
4 oz torrified wheat
.5 oz roasted barley
23 g Challenger pellets @ 60 min
7 g Challenger pellets @ 15 min
7 g us Saaz pellets @ 15 min
1 tsp Irish moss @ 15 min
14 g Challenger pellets @ 2 min
Wyeast 1968
Target og- 1.043-44
Actual og- 1.044
Final - 1.009
4.6% Abv
79% apparent attenuation
65% actual attenuation
4/7/10- 90 minute single step infusion mash at 150 degrees. Had to add some boiling water to bring the temp back up when it dropped into the 140's. Sparged with 5 gal 170 degree water, collected 7+ gallons. I had to do part of the sparging pretty quickly as I noticed it was 330pm and I had to leave the house at 6, and wanted to do a 90 minute boil. Ran the beginning slow, then tried to alternate between some slow and fast running. Ended up only boiling for 1 hour and 15 min, but that worked ok as I was left with 5.25 gal of wort (or so). Hit the target og on the head! Pitched yeast a little hot, 89 degrees. Active fermentation by the next morning.
4/21/10- Bottled today with 2.5 oz corn sugar, aiming for 1.75 volumes of co2. Tastes sooooo good already! Should be drinkable in another week or so.

Final gravity.

A great copper color.

In bottles. I forgot I was so low on bottle caps. I only had 28. Fortunately I thought of this before I sanitized 60 12 oz bottles. I had just enough caps to do 28 bombers.
4/28/10- First tasting.
5/19/10- Second tasting.