The beer swaps keep rolling in and we get an American Brown ale from a guy named Chris in our own home state of Massachusetts. He wanted us to try his take on this American take on an English classic. Let’s see what we thought of his beer.

Chris’ American Brown Ale Recipe

Here’s what Chris sent us along with his beer.

Lake Boon Brewery – American Brown Ale

Batch Size: 5 gallons
Original Gravity: 1.046
Final Gravity: 1.012
ABV: 4.5%

Grains:

9 pounds of American 2 row Malt
8 ounces 60 °L Caramel Malt
8 ounces Honey Malt
4 ounces of Chocolate Malt

Hops:
1 ounce of Northern Brewer hops (7.3% AA) – 60 minutes to go in the boil
2 ounces of Cascade hops (6.3% AA) – 10 minutes to go in the boil
1 ounce of Cascade (4.7% AA) – 1 minute to go in the boil

Yeast:
Safale US-05 Ale Dry Yeast

Other Notes
Brewed this beer on November 27, 2017.

Water was bought from The Basket

The mash was for 60 minutes at 152°F
The fermentation lasted two weeks at 68°F
At bottling, he carbonated using 3.9 ounces of corn sugar, looking for 2.2 volumes of CO2.

American Brown Ale Tasting Notes

Appearance: It’s a beautiful looking brown ale. Mike thought it was a spot on color. It was brown!

Aroma: Mike dug the Cascade coming right off the top. Classic American hop aroma, which is a sweet grapefruit character that meshes well with the aroma from the malts.

Flavor: The description that Mike gave was “a distinctive Brown ale flavor”. He didn’t think any one of the malts stuck out but they all played well together.

Mouthfeel: Mike felt it was a little thin with the first few sips but then he said he appreciated the drinkability of the beer as he continued to drink it.

Overall Impression: This was a great balanced American Brown ale with a nice Cascade notes in the aroma and flavor. In terms for improvements, we felt that taking measures to bring more body to the beer would make it even better. We discussed a few different ways of doing that including a higher mash temp, using a dextrine malt, and changing the base malt from 2-row to English pale malt.

Thanks for the beer, Chris – Brew ON!