We’re kicking off a new homebrewing experiment with Mike’s brown ale project. He’s got a thing for English styles, and has been chasing his perfect brown ale for a while now. This post is about his first step, discussing his brewing and tasting of iteration #1. Let’s see what we learned and where we’re heading next.
Brown Ale Recipe #1
Water Chemistry:
Generic spring water
3 grams gypsum
1 gram calcium chloride
Add salts to the kettle (not the mash)
Grain Bill:
5 lbs 2 oz Valley Malt Pale Malt
8 oz Crystal 60
4 oz Biscuit Malt
3 oz Crisp Chocolate Malt (450L)
Hops:
34 grams Liberty Hops (5.6% AA) – 60 minutes (bittering, single addition)
Target: 30 IBUs
Yeast:
Mangrove Jack’s Empire Ale yeast
Mash Schedule:
Mash at 152°F for 60 minutes
Mash out at 168°F for 10 minutes
Fermentation:
Original Gravity (OG): 1.048
Final Gravity (FG): 1.009
Estimated ABV: 5.1%
What We Learned & Next Steps
The beer poured a nice brown with reddish highlights and cleared up well. On the nose, Liberty hops came through with some caramel in the background. Tasting it, the caramel and chocolate malt were the first things I noticed, blending together smoothly. The hops played nice with the malt, finishing dry and super drinkable. There’s toastiness from the biscuit and chocolate malts, balanced by the sweetness from the Crystal 60.
Mike’s water chemistry tweaks paid off. Adding salts to the kettle, not the mash, helped smooth out the flavors. The beer attenuated well, finishing dry and easy to drink. For the next round, Mike would bump up the caramel a bit, maybe swap the pale malt for Maris Otter, and try a different yeast. The hop selection is flexible, but Liberty worked well here.
Sometimes you get lucky on the first try, but there’s always room to tweak. This project is about dialing in the recipe over time and learning from each batch. Stay tuned for future updates as we refine the brown ale to perfection.
BREW ON!