John Courage - Director's Bitter

[monkey_doctor]

18.9Litres
IBU 36
SRM 12
4.8%abv

3.5kg British Pale Malt (Mairs Otter)
346g British Crystal Malt
Mash for 90min @ 65c

113g Cane Sugar @ 60min
28g Target (8.5 AA) @ 60min

7g Styrian Goldings @ 15min
7g Hallertau Hersbrucker @ 15min
5ml Irish Moss @ 15min

28g Styrian Goldings @ 1min

Wyeats 1098

14g Styrian Goldings Dry Hop

Prime with 180ml corn sugar

I have bought all this and am planning to brew this at the weekend.

I have been looking at recipes for the past few weeks and have seen soooo many that i have had trouble choosing a brew. I decided to just let fate choose and flicked through my book and stopped at a page, on which directors bitter sat. I would just like to have some views on this brew. What about upping the hops slightly (say 5-8% throughout the brew) and adding about 40% more crystal malt.

[Bigster]

I am still drinking the directors I brewed from the DL book and very nice it is too
Its funny how the same brews can have quite different clone recipes.

The only complaint I would have compared to the original, and this is the only thing that I have had concerns over with all my home brews, is that they lack hop bite/fizz (dificult to explain but I dont mean I want a pint of toby ) compared to commercial brews.

Good luck Monkey Doctor

[Bigster]

Havent treated the water yet. Will try the gypsum. Thanks for the tip

[monkey_doctor]

Brewed this beer yesterday (as i mentioned in a post in the AG section)

I stuck pretty much exactly to the recipe - 20g more plae malt and a couple of grammes more in both the bittering and aroma hops)

I had a couple of friends over to help, one was a novice, like myself, and the other is quite an experienced AG brewer. Everything went pretty well and having someone with alot of experience meant that it was a bit more relaxing.

We had a couple of brews while brewing this batch - these included Fullers London Pride, Innis and Gunn IPA 2006 ltd edition, Barelegs (By Strangford Lough Brewing), Meantime Vienna Lager and Dark Lager.

The only problem i had was with my sparge arm (some of you may have seen the post i made about this in the equipment section) My friend informed me that it wasn't correct because the holes have been drilled all on the one side instead of on opposite sides . We managed to sparge anyway - we just held the sparge arm and moved it about ourselves. I have emailed the place where i got it to see what he says.

I left the brew to chill in the bath last night and pitched the yeast in this morning - unfortunatly there is no activity yet.

Ill maybe take a couple of pics of my kit, brewing area and the current brew and post them in here. I will have the camera on hand for the next brew and take some pics. Im thinking of a nice robust porter -> something nice for the approaching winter nights

[monkey_doctor]

The hopshop sent me out a new sparge arm and covered the postage on the old on. The new one is great.

I racked my DB into secondary on Sunday and plan to bottle it this Saturday. I tated some of it and its very good. I have about 4.5gallon - what would you use to prime this and how much. I lprefer undercarbonated beer to over carbed beers - kinda cask style. I have a couple of pics that i will stick up.

btw i have stuff ordered for a London Pride clone which im going to do this weekend. I'll post up the recipe nearer the weekend.

Thanks guys.

[Calum]

I am going to do a variation of a Graham Wheeler Directors as the recipe corresponds fairly closely to what I have available. I will also need to purchase some extra bits (black malt, hops and perhaps yeast).

The recipe is from "Brew You Own British Real Ale from Home"

Batch Size 23L
OG 1046
Racking 1008
ABV 5.2%
BU 33
SRM 15
===========
Pale Malt 3800g
Crystal 230g
Black Malt 23g
White Sugar 430g

Target Hops 35g Start of Boil

Hallertau 5g last fifteen
Styrian Golding 10g last fifteen

What I am planning is

23L
============
Pale Malt 4000g
Crystal 250g
Black Malt 25g
Invert Cane Sugar 454g (1 tin of golden syrup)

I don't have target but I have some challenger in the freezer so I will use 50g at start of boil ((35g X 11.2 AA of target)/7.7 AA of challenger).

Hallertau 15g last 15 minutes
I need to buy these aroma hops and my local homebrew shop does not seem to stock Styrian so I'll just use the extra hallertau instead.

I only have a packet of Safale s 04 which is a very consistent performer. I would like to try something else. My choice might be limited but does anyone have any suggestions on a yeast that will get me close to a Directors?

It looks like it will be a good hearty brew on paper. If all goes well I will fill up my cornie and bottle the spare.

[SteveD]

In the mid 80's to early 90's my local pub was a Courage pub, serving Directors, Best, John Smith's Pisswater, Fizzykeg Headachebrau, etc. I used to have trouble telling Best and Directors apart. Directors had slightly more mouthfeel, and a slightly deeper flavour, but not that much different. Later on we discover that they come from the same 1057 brew, the difference being the ammount of water they diluted it with before kegging......hmmm.

When the beer orders came in, for better or worse,..mainly worse..and tied pubs were forced to carry guest beers we used to clamour for decent ales to be stocked....the landlord used to say, yeah, yeah, but it's always best to stick with the local beer.

I pointed out that Best and Directors were manufactured, I used the term deliberately, in Bristol....We were in East Molesey, Surrey. Hahahaha.