English Nut Brown Ale

08 October 2006 @ early afternoon | Comments (3)

I recently sampled AleSmith’s Nautical Nut Brown at the Liar’s Club, inspiring this attempt to recreate such a tasty beverage.

While AleSmith’s interpretation is not entirely true to the traditional English nut brown style (it lacks the fruity esters of English yeast), it’s closer to the complex malty chocolate flavor that I feel is much more satisfying than a simple nut brown. I also love a good porter, and I think their example manages to marry elements of both styles while still maintaining the wonderful nut brown malt complexity.

The recipe

• Style: Northern English Brown Ale
• Type: All grain
• Batch size: 10 gal
• Color: 26 SRM
• Bitterness: 23 IBU
• OG: 1.058
• FG: 1.021
• BU/GU: 0.43
• Alcohol: 4.9%
• Mash: 85% efficiency
• Yeast: California Ale (WLP001)
• Grain:
  • 15 lb. British pale malt (Maris Otter)
  • 1 lb. Victory malt
  • 1 lb. Crystal malt 10L
  • 1 lb. British chocolate malt (Hugh Baird)
  • 0.25 lb. American black patent malt
• Hops:
  • 1 oz. E. Kent Goldings (60 min)
  • 1 oz. Styrian Goldings (45 min)
  • 1 oz. E. Kent Goldings (15 min)
  • 1 oz. Styrian Goldings (aroma)

The highlight of this recipe definitely is the nutty malt character, balanced by mellow European hops. I’ve included both Victory and Crystal malt (11%), along with a healthy amount of British chocolate malt (5.5%), to bring a complex nutty and toasted malt flavor and aroma. I’m gambling a bit here, but I also threw in a dash of black patent to contribute both color and to dry out the malt sweetness.

The process

Moving up to ten gallons was not as easy as I expected. There were several new challenges posed by the step up in batch size that I hadn’t anticipated, all relating to generation and dissipation of heat. It quickly became apparent that without a strong burner (thankfully, I have one) it just isn’t possible to heat such a large volume of water and stay on-schedule. Cooling ten gallons of wort also requires an equally efficient wort chiller. I can’t imagine the amount of energy required in large scale breweries to heat and cool a 20- or 50-barrel recipe.

It was also a challenge lifting this much liquid, which weighed over 100lbs (12.5 gal) for the boil. Looks like I’ll be bribing friends with a beer or two to help with the heavy-lifting on brewday.

The result

Unfortunately, another problematic result. The recipe has perhaps a bit too much roasted grain, but is otherwise solid. There are some strong phenolics in the nose, possibly due to a water problem or sanitation issues. I’ll have to revisit this one again after I work through whatever it is that’s plaguing my beers at the moment.

Lessons learned

• Ten gallons is better than five.
• Double-check your math (yeah, I know there’s Promash, but that’s only available for Winblows).
• Next time use a checklist (once again, I forgot the Irish moss).
• Lateral thinking and a good understanding of the brewing process are indispensible when solving problems on the fly.