Bitterness & English Ales

[Sandimas]

I've always played it safe with IBUs for my British ales and usually plump for a figure around 30, less for darker/brown ales, a bit more for pale ales. Never gone beyond 35 IBU and feel there's something missing from my brews.

Bought some commercial pale ale for Christmas from a local brewery, a pretty average bitter 4% ABV made with Challenger and Fuggles, and it seems to have a much more pronounced bitterness than I've achieved.

Should I be trying for a higher IBU figure, 40 or even 45? Or higher? Most my homebrew bitters are 4 - 4.6% and usually golden or amber ales.

 

[An Ankoù]

In my opinion, you've hit the nail on the head. What formula are you using to calculate the hops required for a certain bitterness? They're not all equal. For example using Brewer's Friend, which is a Tinseth calculation. 50g of hops of 5% alpha acid in 20 litre batch boiling for 75 minutes will give me 33.72 IBUs. If I use the Brupacks / Wheeler formula then I need 67.44g of the same hops to get 33.72IBUs. As you're talking about British Ales with a bittering charge at the beginning of the boil and then perhaps some late hops, the latter is perfectly adequate although it would be difficult to apply to some of the weird and wonderful American recipes with progressive hop additions.
The formula is:
brew length in litres x required IBUs = Weight of hops in grams
2 x alpha acid content of hops

I tend to go between 35 and 40 IBUs for ordinary bitters.

 

[Sandimas]

Thanks, I've been using Brewers Friend and I didn't realise there are different formulas. I will give the latter a go.

 

[An Ankoù]

Thanks, I've been using Brewers Friend and I didn't realise there are different formulas. I will give the latter a go.

The one I use is pretty rule of thumb and while it works well in the range of, say, OG 1035-1055 it would need adjusting for high gravity worts. It also ignores the contribution of late additions. In my opinion, since the hop's alpha acid content deteriorates with age and storage conditions (and variety), we never really know what we're working with anyway. The recipes in Dave Line's books of ½ oz of this and ¾ of that worked just fine and were just scaled down from the original brewers' recipes anyway.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

The key way to think of this is the BU:GU ratio, of bitterness to (original) gravity units, as you want more bitterness to balance higher OGs.

So for instance 30IBU in a 1.040 beer represents a BU:GU of 30/40 = 0.75

That's pretty typical of southern bitters, some go even lower whereas traditional northern bitters tend to be more in the 0.8-0.9 range - as a northerner I prefer somewhere in the 0.85 range.

Also higher sulphate levels in your water can enhance the perception of bitterness, which is why Burton water was so prized. You can get an idea of your water at Severn Trent's website - for instance Malvern North has an average of 55 chloride, 84 sulphate and a hardness of 10.48 Clark which is 150ppm calcium carbonate equivalent. So a little bit hard but definitely needing some calcium chloride and in particular gypsum for a good bitter - think in terms of 1tsp CaCl2 and 2tsp gypsum in 20-ish litres.

As mentioned above, storing your hops properly and paying attention to their alpha acids is also really important!

Or you can bitter with hop extract - the isomerised sort, not the ones like Incognito intended to substitute for dry hopping. It's slightly different to bittering with hops, it's a cleaner bittering but if it's good enough for Cloudwater it should be good enough for the rest of us!

 

[foxy]

For all the English ales and bitters, top end of the is more preferable for my taste. And make sure the AA on the pack is in line with the one Brewers Friend comes up with.

 

[Hanglow]

Most homebrew sized packs of hops can be a bit variable in AA I think, and always on the low side imo given their storage/transit. Also a number of the published IBUs for a particular beer may be for the finished beer, i.e the beer IBUs after fining/filtering etc, so wort IBUs should be a lot higher. I remember Graham Wheeler having a good moan about the predicted IBUs from the various equations that are still used and said they were distinctly lacking. I'd agree with him too.

As a guide I use tinseth and add up to 50% to the generally accepted IBU for each beer style to get a beer I want to drink. So a hefeweizen I aim for about 20, mild 25-30, bitter 40-50 etc etc.

The values you get from your software are useful in a comparative sense - Ultimately you need to brew more beer and take notes on these sort of things to dial in your future brews.

 

[Sandimas]

Some really good advice above, thanks all. Been a bit conservative with my hopping but this has encouraged me to push it a bit more.

I do always plug the AA figures from the actual hop packet into my software rather than using the standard. And I've been buying less hops recently so as not needing to store them in the freezer too long, I do find they lose a lot if stored for more than a year. Also been using some Gypsum in my brews but just a teaspoon, will try upping that to two.

 

[The Baron]

I agree with virtually all the above as it is very good advice but I do tend to err on the lower side of IBU's as I have had same IBU beers that can be very good and some just very harsh on the bitterness is this perceived bitterness creeping in or just the wrong choice of hops in certain beers?
Ps Merry Christmas

 

[Hop_it]

I also agree with most of the above, but perhaps its also worth mentioning the possibility of using some isomerised hop extract. I have used this occasionally to top up the bitterness of a brew that I judged was not quite bitter enough for my taste. I would not advocate using it in place of real hops (although I believe that some commercial breweries do this). However, if your hops have aged or the balance (BU:GU ratio) of the recipe you have brewed turns out not to be to your liking, then the careful addition of isomerised hop extract can really help (see attached copy of an email from John Ritchie, the production Director of Ritchie Products Ltd).
The most convenient way to add it is immediately before bottling/kegging, but its not always easy to tell how much you need when you taste a small sample of a 'green' beer. The alternative is to add it when you are about to drink it. I use a glass dropper (like an eye dropper) to put 1 or 2 drops (or perhaps more) into the glass before pouring the beer in. It's not the ideal solution, but it can make a mediocre beer taste quite acceptable.
PS - I have no affiliation with Ritchie Products Ltd. It just happens to be the easiest product of its type to get in the UK.