Description
Want to brew proper Cask Beer at home? Well now you can thanks to Five Points and The Craft Beer Channel.
Five Points Best is a single-hopped Best Bitter, brewed with Five Points Fuggles. Refreshing and smooth, Best has notes of caramel and biscuit, and a lovely grassy, herbal freshness that makes you want to reach for another one.
Five Points Best celebrates both the history of British brewing and the modern craft beer movement. It showcases the Five Points take on beer: influenced by the past but brewed very much for the present. Because, we reckon, why should modern beer always mean new beer styles?
Ingredients Included
Simpsons Low Colour Maris Otter
Simpsons Wheat Malt
Simpsons Amber Malt
Simpsons Crystal Medium
Five Points Fuggles 150g Whole Hops
WLP013 London Ale Yeast (1 packs)
Method
Beer Style (main): British Ales
Beer Style (sub): Special Bitter or Best Bitter
Batch Size: 20L
Original Gravity: 1.043
Final Gravity: 1.011
ABV %: 4.1%
IBU: 29
THE MASH
Temperature °C: 67
Length (mins): 60
THE BOIL
Boil time (mins): 60
Additions and timing:
40g Five Points Fuggles @ 60 minutes
30g Five Points Fuggles @ 15 minutes
80g Five Points Fuggles @ Flameout
Yeast: WLP013
Fermentation temperature/steps: Pitch at 17C and ferment with WLP013 at 19C
Comments:
After supplying Jonny with ingredients for his video about how to produce cask beer at home we thought how do we take this a step further for the home brew community? Well we got in contact with Jonny again, then he put us in touch with Greg at Five Points who was more than happy to help out the home brew community. We talked ingredients, how they have specific malts, the yeast strain that they use for this classic beer, and how they have a specific hop grower for their hops.
Well after a bit of work we sourced all of the exact same ingredients so that you can well and truly reproduce this modern classic Best Bitter at home to the exact recipe.
Oh and don’t forget to subscribe to the Craft Beer Channel on YouTube for more great beer videos
And if you also want to do a side by side taste test, or are just hankering for a some great beer the team at Five Points have kindly offered you 10% off 5L mini casks for Best through their webstore. You just need to use clink here and use code BREWINGBEST at checkout
Big thanks to Five Points team and to Craft Beer Channel for their help in sharing the actual full recipe for Five Points Best.
Be sure you check out the Craft Beer Channel shop hosted by ourselves
Paul Johnson –
Great recipe that produces a very English ale. I subbed the Amber for Munich malt (I love Munich malt) and used SO4 yeast. Will definitely be brewing again
Stephen Lyon (verified owner) –
A must try recipe that produces a great example of a modern bitter. Notes of sweet caramel are perfectly balanced by the grassy bitterness from the Fuggles hops. The WLP013 London Ale Yeast imparts a real oak character which combines with the bitter-sweet flavours to produce a very well-rounded, moreish beer.
Chris Channing (verified owner) –
This is a fantastic modern ale! Very sessionable and a big hit with family members.
Rob Dagley (verified owner) –
This turned out great, dare I say as good as the real thing. Thanks to 5 Points and MM for bringing this to us! I Brita filtered my south London water and added 0.776 DWB per litre and got excellent results from this.
Andrew Booth (verified owner) –
Just brewed this Five Points Best Bitter Kit I’ve got to say one of the best beers I have drank very bitter and dry the way a best bitter should be.
Michael Walker (verified owner) –
Fermented under 1 bar pressure in F80 for unitank and then sampled after two weeks. Naturally carbonated, very smooth, clear, and clean tasting. My first time using whole hops, which seem to be much fresher tasting than the pellets I have used before. So glad I brewed a double batch, cracking brew.
Michael Walker (verified owner) –
Fermented under 1 bar pressure in F80 unitank and then sampled after two weeks. Naturally carbonated, very smooth, clear, and clean tasting. My first time using whole hops, which seem to be much fresher tasting than the pellets I have used before. So glad I brewed a double batch, cracking brew.
Caroline Greenough –
This kit makes a superb bitter, fuggles is not a hop I’ve used often but they really shine in this beer, smooth bitterness and very well balanced. Enjoy!
Michael Beswick (verified owner) –
Great beer. Very clear. Needed three weeks to condition, initially quite a raw taste, but now perfect.
James Cross –
Brewed this one as simply as possible – bucket fermenter for 2 weeks, then conditioning in a pressure barrel. Drinks like a proper cask bitter. I used London Ale III yeast and reduced the flame out hops to avoid opening a second packet – very happy with the balance of residual sweetness and hops
Mark Pope (verified owner) –
Probably the best recipe I have made by a country mile. I will definitely be making this again. I was gutted when the keg died!
Neil Williams –
This beer is now in my top 5 of all the brews I’ve done and is usually somewhere within the system (fermenter or keg) or the next one to do. The only trouble with it, is that it never hangs around in the keg for long….
Gav M (verified owner) –
An outstanding pint. Used R.O water and went for the ‘Murphy’s bitters and pales’ profile on Beersmith. Very slow fermentation – took around 4 days to really get going. Got there in the end though no probs. Spent 3 weeks in the fermenter in total before kegging and fining with gelatin. Needs a good 3 weeks in the keg before drinking. Will defs brew this again and again. Thanks MM. What a beaut. Keep these English clones coming, please.