Pride..

Tried some fresh off the production-line beer tonight, it's a clone of one of my favourite commercial beers, London Pride, made by Fullers of Chiswick (my birth-town) For this one I used a special "London" yeast and followed the exact recipe from a book of English bitter recipes. The result was amazing, I honestly couldn't tell the difference (I've drunk my fair share of "Pride" over the years, especially as a student in London) a real eye-opener. When you get all the numbers right, use the right grains and the right yeast and treat your water to get the right balance of salts & pH then it's perfectly possible to brew up an exact replica of your favourite beer, even the clarity and colour was spot on (see above for my version and below for the real thing). 

I've tried to do "English Bitter" a few times now and the results have been mixed, most have been just OK and one was awful so nothing to shout about. I consciously put a more effort into this one to get everything right and it paid off; I've started making detailed notes on every brew day I do now, all the temperatures, gravities, pH, volumes etc. are faithfully recorded so that the process is repeatable (if the result is good!). I'll definitely be making this one again soon.