Mu: Catharsis

A few months back C's Brother, who has a very different brewing philosophy than I, brewed an ESB. After some discussion, it was obvious that the exactly meaning of the label 'ESB', (extra special bitter), was not particularly well understood by me. Further investigation lead me to a believe that ESB was a term applied to a bitter (or amber ale) that was stronger than normal. Not very helpful given the wide rang of options for what could be called a bitter. This is the recipe for the second attempt at getting something that fits this style (which I basically like). The first came out well in terms of color malt balance, it was accepted as an ESB by the various folks who sampled it. I didn't care for the hop profile (slightly too bitter, wrong aroma), nor did I much care for head retention and body. For fun I'm also changing the yeast, and slightly lowering the gravity. Let's see if it still passes as an ESB ;) The color will not be correct either. This most likely needs 4oz of chocolate malt.