Left Field Bitter - Out of the Ordinary

Jan 20 2012

Tonight at Hashigo Zake you’ll find a cask of what we’re calling Left Field Bitter - Out of the Ordinary. 

It’s based on the classic English bitter style, but we’ve taken a bit of a different tack. Instead of hopping the beer at various stages during the boil, whole cone hops were mashed in with the malt at the very beginning of the brew.

This process, called mash hopping, is said to give hop complexity and what is described as ‘hop texture’ to the mouth feel of the finished beer. Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve no idea what ‘hop texture in the mouth feel’ is like, but I thought it would be bloody interesting to find out. The resulting wort was then boiled without any hops, before being passed through another dose of whole cones in the hop back and finally dry hopped with whole cones in the cask.

Weighing in at 3% abv, it’s light on alcohol, but hopefully big on flavour. Best enjoyed a little warmer than you would normally drink your beer, just to let the malt character come to the fore and balance the hop bitterness. Cheers.