American Brown Ale

[MatthewG5]

Hi guys,

 

Planning an ABA, but I'm unsure which can would make the best base. I'm tossing up between the dark ale and the English Bitter. Here's what I have so far

 

1 x Coopers can - to be decided

1.5kg LDME

300g choc wheat

300g crystal 60L (both steeped 30mins)

15g cascade @ 15 mins

15g Mt Hood @ 5 mins

US-05 yeast

 

Thanks

 

[Smithy]

Not too sure on the malts and grains, but the hops should probably stick to UK varieties to give more earthy tones.

 

Also the yeast I'd probably go with a Windsor or something.

 

That's just me though

[MatthewG5]

Thats what makes this recipe hard, I want to try and keep it as American as possible, hence the hops and yeast choice. Prob is finding a Coopers Can to fit.

[DylanI]

Hey Matthew

 

I'd use the Real Ale can. You definitely won't need to use the Dark Ale can. Or you could use the English Bitter, and back off on some of the extra malts, but where's the fun in that?

 

I made a great ABA with the following malt profile:

 

3.0kg Light LME

0.5kg Light DME

0.25kg med crystal

0.17kg choc malt

 

It was certainly dark enough. I used Warrior hops for bittering, and centennial and amarillo for flavour. If I had my time again, I'd replace an unhopped can with a Real Ale can, and skip the Warrior hops. The Real Ale is pretty high in bitterness (saves on hops), and is cheaper than the unhopped cans.

 

The moral to the story, the Real Ale can will give you almost all of the bitterness you need, and is not needlessly dark. Give it a go.

 

-Dylan

 

 

[jasond4]

I would go the real ale kit as a base and if you can track down some brown malt grains go with them instead of the crystal. Your hops look the goods so go with them. If you look around for a clone of Pete's Wicked Ale(1990's) now discontinued It was the brown ale of the America's. I do remember really enjoying it back in 1993.

[GrahamB8]

I would use the English bitter

Possibly use an English yeast for some fruity esters (US would maybe be to clean)

swap the times around on the Mt Hood and Cascade

 

Rest of the recipe looks decent to me

http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style10.php

[MatthewG5]

Thanks guys, I didn't think of the Real Ale can, it definitely fits my budget too [lol] Haven't used choc wheat before, can't wait to see how it turns out.

[MatthewG5]

Dylan,

What order did you use centennial and amarillo in? Just dug through the freezer and found galaxy, Chinook and amarillo. Thinking a combination of 2 of them. But which to choose [unsure]

[DylanI]

Hi Matt

 

I just looked over my notes, and it looks like I was a little skipmy with the hops. That really surprises me given how tasty the beer was.

 

I used:

13g Warrior for 60 minutes (or whatever hops for bittering)

10g Centennial for 10 minutes

10g Amarillo for 1 minute

 

Switch off the boil and let them steep for a while. I then dry hopped with 15g of Amarillo. Again, this seems a little skimpy.

 

For what hops to use, I find that Cascade and Galaxy are a winning combo. In a homebrew magazine that I've got, one of the Little Creatures guys gives a homebrew recipe for their pale ale. The flavouring hops the brewer recommended was 40g Cascade and 20g Galaxy at flame out.

 

Also, I just made a dunkelweizen using chocolate wheat malt. I used 250g in a 21L batch and it's really dark. If you want a brown ale, perhaps, drop the choc wheat back to about 150-200g.

 

Good luck. I'm sure there are plenty of hop heads on here that could put their two bob's worth on hop selections.

-Dylan

[MatthewG5]

Brew put down on Sunday, used 15g Galaxy at 15min, and 12g of Amarillo at 0 min, I'll DH with another 12g of Amarillo. Choc wheat has similar smells to carafa and is definitely darker than expected but oh well brew still smelled awesome and I never did care if a beer was slightly out of style[biggrin]