How To Brew English Ordinary Bitter Beer

[@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse]

Thanks for watching Everyone! We'll be loading a new brewing video every 3 weeks for the next while and then may bump that up to a new video every 2 weeks in 2025. What types of brewing content would you like to see?

[@GaryJohnWalker1]

And despite that slightly anti lager rant, how about making a dunkel - a dark lager? Or kolsch tyle. Or even a wheat beer - Belgian or German style.

[@williammay1869]

A sour would be interesting

[@Soulflayerr]

How about starting some barrel aged projects? Barleywine, Wheatwine, and imperial Stouts given a few months to rest in or on oak.

[@joeholmes9157]

There are many variations of IPAs to explore and discuss/drink (drinkscuss??)

[@PresidentBarackbar]

I'd love to see English Dark Mild as in the US it is incredibly hard to get!

[@ianlaker9161]

You're new to me and I've been homebrewing for many years here in England. Spot on evaluation of a classic bitter. Yes, it's best served on cask at cellar temperature. It always irritates me when English beer is characterised by those who know no better as 'warm and flat'. Absolute nonesense. In a pub it is served cool but not chilled, from the cask with that natural fairly low carbonation from the yeast but with plenty of life and sparkle. Well done for not calling bitter another name for British pale ale. They are two different styles. I've lived all my life in East Kent, so those Goldings are our pride and joy!

[@ConvolutedCommunication]

Glad to see you back! Love these videos! Don't feel like you have to upload exactly on a schedule, hate to burn you out.

[@shanelambert6846]

As a brewer in Texas, I've never been so jealous of people with basements 😂

[@51rwyatt]

The 80s synth music plus the xtra tuf rubber boots ... this man is serious about beer-making

[@RodMurray]

I stumbled on your flying channel yesterday and this came up on my suggestions today! My fav beer to make is bitter. I will try this recipe!

[@bkd69ster]

New Order and homebrewing? Yes please!

[@Kinkajou1015]

Not a beer person, but I come and watch more to see the process because I like watching the journey.

[@Einungbrekke]

I'm the same. I don't like the taste of alcholoe at all, but I really like the beer process.

[@Skylance87]

Same actually

[@diegosorio]

Glen is a man of many talents. Came for the airplanes, stayed for the beers!

[@mandobrownie]

It's so nice to see that the licensing for a New Order song isn't completely unaffordable anymore lol

[@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse]

I think they are still paying debt from the Hacienda, and need every $20 they can get.

[@jodiethomas4877]

Lol, this is what I came to the comments for.

[@lbh002]

A short while ago my wife and I visited an old friend of hers who was now living in London, UK. Of course being a good American married to a good Canadian, we had to frequent small public houses and try the different styles of beer. It turns out my favorite was a ordinary bitter. Thank you for brew number 50.

[@KathrynDeJaeger]

My late husband used to home brew. He still had so much grain and other ingredients that I ended up throwing it all away. But I remembered those sounds and smells of him Brewing. I wasn't a beer drinker at all. Thanks Glen for the blast from my past life.

[@NikiCanotas]

This is your basement???? 1. I wish California came with A BASEMENT. But you take "hobby" to a truly new level with a kitchen like that in a humble basement.... Inspiring.

[@treborretsnom6186]

Hahaha!! Love this friend 👍 it's like the A-Team and MacGyver brewed beer 😅🫡👍

[@robstevenson675]

Wonderful that I stumbled across your brewing channel! I follow your cooking channel and enjoy your style of presentation. And now this! A bit of serendipity too, since a Kentish ale or a bitter is my number one favorite beer. Number two is a brown ale, similar to Newcastle Brown Ale. It’s a good one for winter drinking. I used to brew a brown ale but stopped when I moved around too much. I couldn’t keep it below 7% alcohol which made it a definite taxi or don’t drink it choice. 😊

[@Mattsstill]

And of course the equipment question. I would like to know more about your setup.

[@k.r.baylor8825]

A behind-the-scenes vid on your setup would be excellent. I haven't brewed in about 10 years, so I would be interested in what you've discovered in your own equipment setup. Mine certainly needs updating.

[@rowejon]

I was born & brought up in Kent, UK. I really liked the "hopped" bitters:- raw hops added to the cask.

[@davecaron1213]

I have been home brewing for about fifteen years. I live in Las Vegas and brew in my garage which make brewing a seasonal pastime. It is just too hot to brew in the summer. I have a portable air conditioner, but it is still close to one hundred degrees when I brew. Not a lot of fun. I have produced some pretty good brews over the years. I have used both full grain and boil in the bag. I like them both I use BeerSmith and have had very good luck with it. But my weak area is in my carbonation. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes it just is not great. There was a brewery here in Vegas who unfortunately closed during the Covid crisis. They used to make a delicious Citra Rye IPA. I experimented and produced very close copy. As soon as the weather cools down I plan to make a brew of it. It is October 6th, and it was one hundred today! Couple more weeks to go.

[@samuel_excels]

WOOOOoooo! The Brew House is back and what a return with a classic English Bitter and knowing Glen's talents he could probably call it Best Bitter. Perhaps a brew of Mild could be done in the near future to compare with the Bitter.

[@Skylance87]

Dont even drink or lke beer but the process fascinates me. This was fun

[@JamesPotts]

Belgian Tripels are criminally overlooked. A good La Fin du Monde recipe would be great!

[@lurker101]

Thank you for bringing the Brew House channel. So nice to see some respect for the "old styles". Love a good ESB or Brown Ale when I brew. Cheers #17

[@csflmich2239]

I have only recently found your flying and brewing channels and am super excited about both. I need to catch up with what you've already posted. I tend to really enjoy stouts and porters. I will be sure to follow along, thank you!

[@davidhudson5452]

This will be fun to see

[@austin2842]

I just throw the hops in the BK, then whirlpool. I pass the wort through a sterilized strainer on its way to the fermentor. I find that it catches the trub and provides sufficient aeration.

[@southfloridaherenow63]

Its been a long wait, awesome Beer making is back.

[@jamesthomas4080]

I subscribed to this channel years ago in anticipation of this day!!!

[@jimjiggles1474]

I live a stones throw away from Banks's Brewery. Im 29, and ive always prefered the old man's drink. My dad would give me a can of banks's bitter as a kid at Christmas and i loved it, as i got into my late teens i found a love for Mild (Banks's Mild being my old man's preferred drink). There is just something about the flavour and mouthfeel of a classic bitter that sits perfect for me.

[@midhudsonmarketing6484]

As usual, I am captivated by your presentations! Now I have to watch your cooking video using this beer. So interesting! Thank you so much, Glen. Oh and yes, you said "squeezed" in this video, not "squoze." Thank you for that! My mother would have approved! - Marilyn

[@Irishfan168]

I have been watching your cooking shows for several years I started brewing about a year ago, happy to see you restart this! Excited to see what you bring to the table.

[@urouroniwa]

Doughing in pedantry: Just keeping in mind that language is fluid and evolving, but I think it's worth talking about. There is a difference between doughing in an mashing in. When you dough in, you add a small amount of room temperature water to the grains and wait for the starch to absorb it before adding hot water. The ratio of grain to water is about what you would add for making a dough -- hence the term. There isn't much reason to dough in these days. Malt is uniformly malted. It is generally milled consistently (mostly thanks to uniform malting). When doing an infusion mash with modern ingredients, there is basically no advantage to doughing in. However, for a triple decoction mash it is still relevant. For a really old school triple decoction mash you would normally do a protein rest (somewhere around 40-50 C). This definitely benefits from doughing in to get the enzymes into solution before raising the temperature. Decoction mashing is also a kind of beautiful thing in that you can hit your rests using nothing but boiling water and understanding your grain/water ratios. So this means you can dough in with cold water and hit your protein rest temp with boiling water -- and still have the correct mash thickness. Not many people are going to do triple decoction mashing any more, but I still think it's worth preserving the old wisdom -- and part of that is preserving the meaning of old vocabulary. I also wanted to say contratulations on the reverse hop schedule. Traditionally it would be fuggles for bittering and EKG for flavor and aroma hops. I vastly prefer it the way you did it. It is nigh on impossible to get a fuggles forward bitter these days, even in the UK. Such a shame! Even EKG is disappearing 😞

[@austin2842]

Glen, you're a glutton for punishment cranking that grain mill by hand!

[@preuc3367]

Just found this video thanks to the algorithm. Thanks for the video

[@NRajah]

Given the choice of any beer I will ask for a bitter and have done since I could first go to the pub. Cask is best. Porters and heavy beers are great too as they are usually sweeter.

[@OttoStrawanzinger]

Since you mentioned that you're also brewing lagers, I'd be really interested in your approach to Czech Dark Lager, a style that is very dear to my heart.

[@beerme2]

Thanks for coming back.

[@bierbrauer11]

If you like washing dishes, you’ll love brewing beer! I haven’t really brewed since moving to the PNW, but you may have me getting back in the game

[@jessegreenwood1956]

OH YEAH! One of my fave beers is Fullers ESB (especially on tap). And I drank a lot of it with New Order in the background!

[@jodiethomas4877]

I came here to see if anyone commented on the music choice. 😊

[@RayThackeray]

Fullers ESB or Gale's HSB are two of the great classic best bitter beers.

[@alanbuller3371]

It's great to see the brew channel back. I started watching your brew channel years ago, which led me to the cooking channel and later the airplane channel. The funny thing is I don't brew or fly and am a lousy cook. But I do really enjoy your content, which is all that matters!

[@YouCantBeatDan]

I requested this a long while back! I’m so soooo happy it’s here ❤😄

[@MrRilarios]

Great video, man, I came from your cooking channel which is fantastic. I will subscribe to this one as well!, even when I don't have any clue on how to make beer :P

[@timfletcher8496]

Yes! 🎉 Soo happy to see you making more of these Glen, thank you

[@alanbithell4587]

Years ago I drank in a pub alongside the owner of a micro brewery. We constantly asked him to do a mild. He said there was no call for mild. One Christmas he did a minimum run of dark mild for us. It was so popular he is still brewing it regularly. It would be great to see your take on a dark mild.

[@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse]

I see a lot of references to dark milds in my brewing books from the early 1800s. I've been working on how to convert / interpret these recipes for a 2024 homebrew setup. I agree that these beers would be popular if breweries would just start making them again.

[@subhumann]

I can't brew at home, so I'll brew vicariously through you and this channel. cheers!

[@craiglewis782]

I started out brewing in an apartment, on a gas stove, with my soup pot. The technique is called partial mash, partial boil. I boil about 2 gallons / 8L of water, and end up with 5 gallons / 19L of beer. If you're really space limited, there are businesses that walk you through the process on their equipment.

[@ninjis]

I didn’t expect the lower ABV and actually appreciate it! I would be interested in more of this style or in the style of a small beer or ciderkin.

[@HogTown06]

Entertaining brew day, looking forward for more. Probably the first person ever to hand crank with a smile on his face.

[@PhattyMcdugen]

The King Has RETURNED!!!

[@edarrenellis]

I’ve been following your cooking channel for a few years now. Had no idea you had a brewing channel! I’ve been a homebrewer since 1993, and am completely stoked to look through your older videos and will be following along with your new brewing ventures! :-)

[@kbjerke]

*HOW* did I miss this channel!? Well, I'm subscribed *NOW,* anyway.

[@Alex-ju8tr]

Glad to see this, I'd followed a bit back from your main channel. Could you post the lost saga, even just unedited for those who might just use x2 playback? Also, what are the chances of posting more DIY brews? While I love science and would usually geek out at specific gravity readings or drool on your work notebook, for brewing I tend to view it 1/2 art 1/2 science. So the idea of sending off to the internet for extracts to clone the flavor-notes of a cellar some 1600's monastery brewmaster would slave away in kinda dispels the magic & makes things seem "Pay to Play"

[@sennest]

Yaaaaaaaay! You're back! I was watching old brew videos wondering when the magical day would come about!

[@ForgetU]

Very nice Glenn, nice brew house. No complaints from me.

[@rufusred44]

Beer is my number one go to tipple. I had no idea it was so complex. I was mesmerized by all of the steps you took to make beer. You use a lot of equipment. Question, how do you increase the alcohol content? I love a strong beer, like a 9% alcohol. Lol.

[@Helllllllsing]

Welcome back to beer brewing. I found your channel 2018 when you brewed something. Since then have I followed you creating KFC alternative, briskets and funny cakes.

[@AndreQuirion]

Just made my day! I started brewing in 2021 and "missed" the active years of this channel. Can't wait to see your methods/recipes considering how your cooking channel changed my view on "following recipe" :)

[@joshmlp]

Glad to see new content glen. Personally I’m more into mead and wine making, so I would enjoy that kind of content. I would also enjoy other fermentation content. So things like pickles, kimchi or sausage. Cheers!

[@damionfragoso2655]

I would love to see you meetup with the clawhammer crew and your review of their brew systems.

[@GaryJohnWalker1]

'old man's drink' - standard to the 70s when laaaager became the thing for young drinkers and probably helped by the surge in travel to Europe especially package hols to the Med from here in the UK. And bitter's almost squeezed out between those lagers and more ancient traditional ales (ie hops+more hops). Anyway, this looks good, and 3.7% makes it a pretty good session drink

[@atacamabrewing]

Welcome back! Such a great surprise to see a new video from you! You are one of the first brewing channels i came across on KZbin back in 2017-2018

[@karlhaikara1629]

Awesome you've restarted these, would be cool if for some beers you touched on a bit the history of the style, that's something I've always been fascinated with

[@brewandbuild]

Nice brew there Glen. To be honest, anything with Golden Naked Oats has got my attention. Love those grains. I'd say to make life easier for yourself, put a 'liquid out' connection onto the end of your transfer hose from the fermentor. Connect this to the liquid out port on the keg after CO2 purging. You can then just open the keg vent port and run the beer straight into the keg oxygen free, with no open lid, and no splashing. I look forward to the next brew. 🍺🍺

[@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse]

I've gone back and forth with that method - even split an Ale brew into two 2.5 gallon kegs. One with the zero oxygen, and one with the method I used here, and after a few weeks couldn't tell the difference. Lagers - I always use the method you describe, since they will 'lager' for 8 -12 weeks before I tap them.

[@brewandbuild]

@@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse If you're getting through your beers quickly, then I think you're right. It's unlikely to notice the small amount of oxygen that's getting in. I'm pedantic about O2 with my beers. They can get stored for 6 months quite often, and even 12 months plus for the stronger ones. They noticeably stale over that time with even a tiny amount of oxygen.

[@ScullyBrewing]

I think its about time i got back into brewing, been just over a year since my last

[@andrewo9762]

The time has come!! Super excited for these new videos Glen!

[@stevengadsby5384]

Like your style of presenting， cool, calm and collected (just like a Brit) not hectic. Like it. I’m a Brit living in Germany. I brew a lot of „old“ English style beers which you can’t get over here. Look forward to more of your vids 👍🍺🍺🍺

[@itterman]

Great to see you back brewing! I find Brewfather is a great tool for recipe writing and tracking all brews also great for sharing recipes!

[@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse]

When I was ready to restart I looked at all the new brewing software - but I'm kind of stuck on BeerSmith since it seems so familiar to me. It's also setup now for my equipment making it really easy to nail the numbers.

[@itterman]

@@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse yeah beer Smith is not bad with brewfather it really shines when you get into later hop additions and whirlpool hops it's very good a IBU calculations so if brewing a NEIPA it's a big help. You you subscribe to it the built in water parameters calculation is really great also!

[@mattashby3642]

It's great to see you again. I watch your cooking videos all the time. I recently started homebrewing, so it's great to see your first new video since I started

[@JerryB507]

Welcome back. Although I rarely drink beer anymore, I was an avid homebrewer a number of years ago and am looking forward to your brews.

[@kellysalyer1972]

So glad you are back to brewing! (Or brewing and posting the videos of the work and results) So pleased you are going to do a KY Common as I am, from Kentucky, and have brewed it before. My personal favorite brew, was a modified English bitter ale/ American ale. Hops are East Kent Golding and Fuggles ,and Saaz as I love Czech hops. Similar grain profile with some crystal malt as well.

[@matthewgoebel8785]

Nice to see you brewing again! :)

[@peterbradburn9115]

Looks spot on. Grew up on Brakspears ordinary, before the Henley brewery closed and they started brewing it elsewhere - was never the same - which was 3.4%ish and looked exactly that colour. Nicely hopped, but nothing like these new IPA's. Nice summer's day there was nothing like it. Could sink a gallon, toddle home for your tea, and be fine for work in the morning. As you say 4 degrees is a bit cold for it, but I'm sure it's still lovely

[@Emzy89]

Hey Glen. Great to see this channel getting revived. Two things I'd love to see is some Cider or Perry (Hard Cider to north Americans) And you might like going down the rabbit hole of brewing an interpretation of Graf, Mentioned in Stephen King's the Dark Tower series. and weird yeast experiments in general interest me.

[@slowrvr]

I regularly brew a 100% Golden Promise bitter (sort of a Timothy Taylor Landlord close except I use S-04 yeast) and I’m always amazed how it changes as it warms. Crisp and clean with decent bitterness when cold, but maltier and more body when it warms. Two beers in one. On another note, check out the 50 meter beer project by Sui Generis brewing on YT, I think you’d really enjoy it. Glad to see you back in the brewery.

[@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse]

Thanks for the tip! I hadn't found that channel before, and now I need to binge watch and get in touch with them. Looks like he's in Canada somewhere.

[@kipjebo9142]

Great to see you brewing again. Looking forward to trying out this recipe.

[@TheErador]

Real ales are having something of a resurgence in the UK, with many breweries favouring heavily hopped and dry hopped IPAs. Not my favourite but it's nice to see. Myself I like a best bitter maybe like your latest brew, or a dark mild (old man drink!). Sours are also big right now in the more select establishments, with some pretty outrageous flavour combos.

[@VelkyAl]

Brewed an ordinary bitter this weekend, trying out the new(ish) English hop Endeavour. On malt front, I use my local maltster Murphy & Rude for all my grains, this recipe has their Pale, Biscuit, and red wheat malts, as well as either their English Pale malt or Munich 9 - I thought it was the English Pale, M&R's closest malt to Maris Otter, but the colour in the wort has me thinking I mixed up unlabeled bags. Not complaining because I think I will have a beautiful beer with nice residual sweetness to fill out the body somewhat. Usually I would use SafAle S-04 for my bitter, but I went with US-05 to get a better understanding of the Endeavour hops. OG is 1.036, 25 IBUs.

[@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse]

Sounds great!

[@emkav551]

Growing up in Luton (UK) Whitbreads brewery was about 2 miles from my home. I have been drinking Bitter for as long as I can remember (as a little girl a schapps glass with a few drops of Tetleys Bitter topped with lemonade went with Sunday lunch at home. Graduated to Bitter Shandy and finally pints as an adult able to choose my pint in a pub. Love a pint of Bitter. Also enjoy Bass, Guinness, Brown and Mild (weird mix of beers but tasty). Looking forward to what you Brew Glen and Julie glad you enjoy Bitter too.

[@dcal702]

Nice to see the brew channel back. I enjoy all three of your channels.

[@nate_vz]

This was super enjoyable to watch. Loved seeing your process. Made me want to brew again. It has been a while for me also!

[@scolley0616]

Got to try home brewing. The pub I go to brews their own beer. My favorite is the Facelift English IPA which is 6.1% ABV and 72 IBU. I do like the hoppy beer!

[@ericv00]

Color is very nice. Very aesthetic brew.

[@nictempleton]

Welcome back to brewing!

[@TheWolfyDaddy]

What a nice home-brewing setup!

[@malkocy]

It is fun to watch, please go on uploading new videos🍺🍺

[@xander1052]

Well timed, I'm drinking my personal Best Bitter, with Jester and Endeavour hops providing a ton of flavour. Only issue is it's a little too dark and I feel it could do with more intensity of the bitterness.

[@applegal3058]

Yay!!! I like wild yeast experiments. I'd lobe to see you try out brewing kombucha and all the different variables that can be modified to change the outcomes in flavour and carbonation. Thanks for all you do Glen!

[@bradmcmahon3156]

Great return to the channel. I haven't used SImpson DRC or GN Oats. The GN Oats being crystal oats looks intriguing, I will need to try it at some stage. Oats are very rare in bitters but was mandated for use in 1943 as an adjunct by the British government where both flaked oats and in some breweries, malted oats were used until the end of the war. So your recipe produced something similar to what would have been available in late war Britain, although at this time 3.9% was on the strong side.

[@wade3166]

Glad to see you brewing again, looking forward to more. Start planning the Fest beer for the spring : )

[@elibyrd2112]

So nice to have you back! Thanks for the new content!

[@JamesPotts]

Great beer style to come back with.

[@JohnnyDoom]

Nicely timed, I was just looking at British Bitter as something to brew.

[@muchasgracias6976]

That looks lovely Glen. I would love to see you brew either a milk stout, ordinary stout or a porter. Thanks.

[@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse]

Brew 51 is a porter, in the keg now awaiting a taste test.

[@whip8]

Great stuff. Love beer. Love your editing and filming style.

[@tomkato9725]

Glad you're back! Your small smash beer and Town brewery in Whitby got me brewing my own. 6 brews days in. Love your channels!

[@stuartcooper9108]

I like the science of brewing.

[@cherylfelton4030]

I dont drink, but I love watching your other channels.. Thanks for a great video. can't wait to see more.. Are you able to make a stout?

[@chrisz8532]

Dark roasted malted barley would be added to a recipe just like this one to make a Stout, Porter, Dark Ale etc. 🍻

[@jamesellsworth9673]

This is a good return to the BrewHouse. How about brewing a Belgian Farmhouse style of ale?

[@derekh989]

This is the best news. I'd love to see a tutorial on using kegs and CO2. I got one, but was very intimidated by the process with all of the warnings about the CO2 tanks and leaks. I ended up giving mine away and going back to bottling, but would love to go back to kegging.

[@GlenAndFriendsBrewHouse]

It shouldn’t be intimidating- a few simple guidelines and everything should be OK

[@paulbrinicombe3665]

Hurray! You’re back!

[@exit322]

+1 for the (I'm assuming) older King's Highway 33 sign

[@kbjerke]

Looks delicious!!