Looking to brew a southern brown this weekend. How does this look? GF likes malty, brown and sweet hence 11B over 11C, but admittedly this recipe might be a bit of a hybrid. I like to keep things simple and I think this might be too messy. Was also planning to split half the batch onto roasted pecans. Mash at 154F?
I have never made this style of beer, so I don’t want to come off as knowledgeable about that specifically, but generally my experience with “extra-dark munich malts” like Biscuit, Melanoidin, Aromatic, Special Roast, I try to keep them to about 1 lb for a 10 gallon batch.
This looks a lot like Jamil’s recipe which is great. You can’t go wrong. I brewed it about a year ago and loved it. It wasn’t as sweet as the style guidelines made it out to be but I’ve never had a commercial example. Apparently the guidelines are based off one beer which may be one of the few remaining examples. could be wrong but that’s what I understand. I liked the result but it could’ve been sweeter if the guidelines are accurate. I used Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire yeast and loved the flavor profile. Nutty the first week or so then more clean.
12 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) 70.1 %
1 lbs 12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 90L (90.0 SRM) 10.2 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Special Roast (50.0 SRM) 7.3 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) 5.8 %
12.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt (180.0 SRM) 4.4 %
6.0 oz Carafa II (412.0 SRM) 2.2 %
2.00 oz Fuggles [5.30 %] - Boil 45.0 min 18.2 IBUs
2.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04)
Here’s the tweaked recipe. Dropped the Biscuit. Dialed back the Sp. Roast slightly, and upped the C-90 and Carafa II a touch to bring it a little closer to Jamil’s, while shooting for the drier end of the style range with a little less Crystal and a touch more Sp. Roast than BCS, and mashing high to keep the body).
The BJCP had a presentation on this style at one of the NHC’s (Cincinnati?) with samples of the beer in question, Mann’s Brown Ale, brought over from London by the late Ant Hayes. To me it tasted more like Coke than beer. It was sweetened with some sort of artificial sugar after fermentation had been arrested. Think very light body, no roast, very little hopping and artificial (non malt) sweetness.
I’m not saying anything about how well this would be judged in a competition, because the guidelines are more important than personal experience in this case.
Jeffy,
Interesting; that’s certainly not what I want to brew! Mann’s is only 2.8% abv so I can see how it’s hard to get much body in that. I’m going to stick to the almost-Jamil above, and see what happens.