Thought I'd drop a line or two and share a beer recipe I brewed last week. I've really enjoyed the malt flavour profile of your typical english brown ale (read Newcastle etc etc). But I also enjoy the bold fresh flavours of American Hops. On my last trip to the US, I encountered some excellent American Brown Ales so I figured why not make a beer that has the best of both worlds? So here it is...
Trough Lolly's Old Fort American Brown Ale
BJCP Style 10-C American Ale, American Brown Ale
(All calcs out of Promash)
Batch Size = 23L
Total Grain = 4.06 kg
Target OG = 1.043 (80% efficiency)
EBC = 61.2
IBU = 42.5
Boil time = 90 minutes
Grist
73.9% / 3.0 kg BB Pale Malt
7.4% / 300g Joe White Crystal 125 EBC
6.4% / 260g Weyermann Carapils
4.9% / 200g Joe White Wheat Malt
7.4% / 300g Simpsons 1200 EBC Choc Malt
Hop Schedule - 90 minute boil
22g 11.40% A/A Chinook Pellets 60 mins
10g 8.6% A/A Amarillo Pellets 20 mins
10g 8.6% A/A Amarillo Pellets 10 mins
Yeast
White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale
And credit where credit's due - the grist is inspired by a recent BYO English Brown Ale recipe. I call this americanised english brown ale "Old Fort" brown ale (geddit? Newcastle / Old Fort??!!)
Feel free to try variants on this recipe, especially for the extract brewers, but may I humbly suggest some constants for consideration? Avoid replacing the choc malt with roasted barley - you need the specific flavour contributions of the choc malt to avoid making a brown porter by mistake. And make sure that you avoid a pale choc malt - the darker choc malts work really well here as they quickly brown the beer without making the flavour cloying - Simpsons Chocolate Malt is highly recommended here. You want to avoid lighter choc malts that will give you an amber ale - this is brown ale time!! Feel free to replace the carapils with pale malt if you like but I like the great head that the carapils generates for this brew.If you don't have any WLP007 Dry English Ale yeast, may I suggest Wyeast 1028 London Ale yeast or if you must go dry, some S-04 yeast. Resist the temptation to chuck in some US-05 or 1056 American Ale yeast - you will really enjoy the english brown flavours from the malt and yeast contrasting really well with the fresh american hops (trust me!).
An alternative bittering / flavour combo is Magnum / Simcoe. Avoid using UK hops unless you plan on making an English Brown Ale (and I just did this last Friday with UK Pilgrim / Goldings and the smell out of the fermenter is awesome!!). The US citrus / floral hops work well here so feel free to use whatever american hop combination you enjoy. Keep the bitterness IBU's to no more than the target OG (eg an OG of 1.043 shouldn't have more than 43 IBU's etc). Because you need to do a 90 minute boil - please, not 60 for this recipe - you need to ensure that you've collected sufficient wort to end up with 23L in your fermenter. That said, don't go berserk sparging the bejaysus out of the mash as you should try to avoid tannin and haze causing compounds if you oversparge this grainbed. A protein rest step in the mash for the wheat addition is entirely at your discretion.
I've just kegged my last batch and hell, it's ready to go as soon as I've gassed up the keg! Enjoy it fresh - it hits all corners of your palate with plenty of malty goodness swirled through an amazing typically bold US hop profile. The gravity is deliberately mid strength to ensure that the alcohol doesn't get in the way of the malt / hop flavour sensation!
I trust you'll enjoy this one as much as I do...
I'll post a pic of my first pint when I tap the keg.Cheers,
TL
