Brew the West Branch of the Delaware
West Branch Extra Special Bitter — home brew kit
Extra Special Bitter · 5.5% · 5 gallons
from $29In stock · Ships in 2-3 days
A five-gallon all-grain extra special bitter kit named for the West Branch of the Delaware: grain, hops, yeast and the recipe, milled and measured.
Brewed and boxed by Derek Leavitt
In the glass
Biscuit, marmalade and earthy hops. Best served cellar-cool, not cold.
Serve 52°F, cellar-cool and barely carbonated
Alongside An evening rise and a long walk back to the car.
Wild browns in big, cold water — the birthplace of American dry-fly fishing, still refusing to be easy.
The box arrives with the grain already milled and weighed, the hops in marked packets for each addition, and the yeast kept cold. You supply the pot, the water and the time. Nothing in here is a concentrate.
Full instructions come in the box and are written for somebody on their second batch, not their twentieth — every step says why it is there, so you can tell which ones you can bend.
- All grain, milled and weighed to the batch
- Extra Special Bitter · 5.5% ABV · 35 IBU
- Hops bagged per addition, so nothing goes in at the wrong minute
- Instructions written for a second-time brewer
The numbers
5.5%Alcohol by volume
(1.056 − 1.014) × 131.25
35Bitterness, IBU
Bitterness only means anything against the style. This one is a Extra Special Bitter.
12Colour, SRM
The swatch above is this number on the standard reference ramp, not an impression of it.
Gravity1.056 down to 1.014 — 75% apparent attenuation.
The day, and the wait
A high mash rest, and London Ale III finishes fast and drops slowly.
- First pint
- about four weeks26 days from brew day, including conditioning
- Batch size
- 5 US gallonsAbout fifty twelve-ounce bottles
- You supply
- Pot, fermenter, thermometer, hydrometer, bottlesThe starter kit below is exactly this list, if you have none of it.
- Mash in60 min at 154°FHold the temperature. This rest is where the body of the beer is decided.
- Sparge and run off45 minSlowly. Rushing it pulls tannins out of the husks.
- Boil60 min3 hop additions, each timed from the END of the boil.
- Chill and pitch30 minDown to 66°F before the yeast goes anywhere near it.
- Clean up45 minThe part nobody photographs, and the part that decides the next batch.
Brew day4 h, kettle on to kitchen clean. The rest of the wait is the yeast doing its own work.
What arrives, and what you supply
In the box
- Milled grain, weighed for a 5-gallon batch
- Hops in marked packets, one per addition
- Yeast — Wyeast 1318 London Ale III
- Priming sugar for bottling
- Printed recipe and brew-day instructions
Worth knowing
- You will need: a brew pot, a fermenter with an airlock, a thermometer, a hydrometer and bottles or a keg.
- Ferment at 66-68°F for twelve days — temperature control matters more than almost anything else in this box.
- An evening rise and a long walk back to the car.
The recipe, in full
Printed on a card in the box as well. Nothing here is a concentrate and nothing is a trade secret.
Grain bill
- Maris Otter
- 10 lb
- Crystal 60L
- 12 oz
- Chocolate malt
- 2 oz
Hop schedule
- East Kent Goldings
- 1 oz at 60 min
- Fuggle
- 0.5 oz at 15 min
- East Kent Goldings
- 0.5 oz at flameout
Fermentation
- Yeast
- Wyeast 1318 London Ale III
- Schedule
- 66-68°F for twelve days
- Batch
- 5 US gallons
Named for the West Branch of the Delaware
Catskills · NY, PA
The water it is named for
- Water type
- Tailwater
While the wort cools
- Brewing starter kit$139
Six-gallon fermenter, airlock, auto-siphon, hydrometer, thermometer, bottling wand and a capper. Everything the recipe assumes you already own.
- West Branch airbrushed hat
The same water, hand airbrushed onto a trucker cap.
Where this came from
river beer · made
0 — nothing entered the score yet, at the Derby's published weights, since . Views are not counted.
- delaware
- home-brew
- extra-special-bitter
- ny
- pa