I made the California Common back on 18 September last year. Used the GH recipe and had this brilliant idea to change the hop schedule.
In the book it is:
41g Northern Brewer @60m
14g Northern Brewer @10m
41g Northern Brewer @0m
I went for a cheap bittering hop and moving the NB to later in the boil (clever me? Not this time!):
17g Herkules @ 60m
40g Northern Brewer @15m
40g Northern Brewer @0m
Tried this first on 1 Feb - OMG was this bitter even still.
Drinking another (couple) tonight. Much smoother, but this is after 6 months.
I can really appreciate the point of this style now. It is a clean sort of taste.
I used US 05 for this, as I do for most of my beers as it tolerates a warm house (me plus 2-3 women, a lot less fun than it sounds!) and fermentation at ~22C.