Bitter

bitter.

    In Britain, the draft equivalent of pale ale, a golden-brown or copper-colored top-fermented beer usually highly hopped, dry, and lightly carbonated. Bitter accounts for about 80 percent of draft beer sales in English pubs. It is slightly more alcoholic (3-5.5 percent alcohol by volume) and more heavily hopped than mild. It is usually available in three strengths although there are regional variations: ordinary bitter, original gravity 1.033-1.038; best bitter, original gravity 1.038-1.045; and special or strong bitter, original gravity 1.045-1.060. Traditionally, bitter is unpasteurized and cask-conditioned in the pub cellar. In the 1960s the large brewing companies introduced kegged beer, a filtered, pasteurized, chilled, and artificially carbonated bitter. A consumer campaign initiated by Campaign for Real Ale in the 1970s opposed this new trend, and naturally conditioned casked bitter is again available as real ale. Obsolete syn: slight beer. Syn: bitter beer; bitter ale.