Apricot taste in bitter

[lsayer]

I'm going to try brewing a few bitters.

A flavour that I particularly like in bitter is an apricot taste (st Austell's tribute has the flavour I'm talking about). I was doing some searching on the net for the yeast/temperature combination that might generate the necessary esters, but am struggling to find any good information. Has anyone manged to recreate this flavour on purpose/by accident? If so how did you do it?

Cheers'en

[colinp]

English Beata Hops will give an apricot flavour. I haven't sourced any yet, so cannot say about hopping levels. At Chippenham Beer festival in april there was Grafton - Apricot Jungle (4.8% abv) made from these hops and it had a very good Apricot flavour.

[beerbulger]

Yeasts can throw this flavour, and if you have identified it in Tribute why not try culturing up some yeast from a St. Austell bottle. Tribute isn't bottle conditioned, but several other from their range are including "Proper Job," which is readily available. (Asda/Tesco/Coop) Its a good yeast. If you have temperature control, try somewhere around 20 - 22C, which should give you moderate Ester formation.
A paler crystal in the recipe formulation may also help to give sweetness to fool your palate into thinking it is Apricot.

[lsayer]

Thanks for your help. I quite fancy a go at culturing yeast, so will have a go in the near future.