Belgium Pale Ale Malt for British Bitter

[JamesE]

Dear all,

This is my first post on the forum, but I’ve been lurking around for a while I completed all the kit for my new brewery.

I’m planning to do a test brew tomorrow. I was hoping to do a standard British bitter, however, I’m based in the Netherlands and I can’t get hold of standard (British) pale malt locally. I picked up a few kilos of Belgium pale ale malt from my local home brew shop yesterday and I was wondering if I could use this instead.

I understand from reading the forum that the main difference between the two malts is the colour (EBC 4-5 for British c.f. 7 for Belgium). Would this be the only difference and would a British ale made with Belgium pale ale malt even work?

I was thinking of the descriptively titled “Beer” recipe, from Dave Line’s “Big Book of Brewing”, not exciting but simple for a first AG brew with new kit:

• 23 litres total volume
  2700g Belgium pale ale malt
  900g white sugar
  75g E. K. Goldings

Does this sound reasonable? Any info much appreciated.

Cheers,

James

[ColinKeb]

beersmith describes your malt as;

Yield: 80.0 %
Type: Grain
Potential: 1.037
Color: 3.0
Coarse Fine Diff: 1.5 % Max In Batch: 100.0 %
Moisture: 4.0 Must Mash: TRUE
Diastatic Power: 60.0 Protein: 10.5
Inventory: 0.00 kg
IBU: 0.000
Notes: Base malt for all beer styles
Higher potential yield than US, English equivalent pale ale malts

and marris otter as ;

Yield: 82.5 %
Type: Grain
Potential: 1.038
Color: 3.0
Coarse Fine Diff: 1.5 % Max In Batch: 100.0 %
Moisture: 3.0 Must Mash: TRUE
Diastatic Power: 120.0 Protein: 11.7
Inventory: 0.00 kg
IBU: 0.000
Notes: Premium base malt from the UK. Popular for many English styles of beer including ales, pale ales and bitters.


so on paper it looks as if there wont be much difference let us know how it turns out

[JamesE]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the reply. The comparison from Beersmith is very interesting and the numbers look pretty similar. Interesting that the colour number is the same for both as I thought that this was the major difference. Encouraging though that the Yield and Potential numbers are very simlar.

I think I'll give it a bash and see how it turns out. Buying Belgium pale malt over here is a lot cheaper than getting British pale malt imported.

Cheers,

James

[Rookie]

There are some purists that insist on British grains for a British beer, but you gotta go with what ya got. I think Belgian pale malt would work fine.
If it was me I would add a bit of crystal malt and maybe some lightly roasted malt (biscuit?). Here is my go to bitter recipe.

Bone Idle Bitter (3 gallons)
4.75 pounds pale ale malt
.5 pound crystal 35
.25 pound victory malt.

22 IBUs challenger for bittering
3 IBUs goldings for flavor (15 minutes)
,25 ounce goldings to steep (15 minutes)
1 tube WLP013

The addition of the victory pushed this from good to great.