Homebrew Beer Blog

I never brewed up an American Brown before, and the Red Ledges are doing a competition in March for brown ales. I figured I’d give this a go. I started with BJCP guide and basically took it as a darker, maltier amber ale with toast and chocolate being a significant character. I’ve had Brooklyn’s Brown, which is listed as the lead example. I’m also a big fan of Bell’s seasonal Brown. Those are a nice beers, but not sure that’s what I wanted. I didn’t have anything hoppy on tap, so I decided to make it hoppy. Plus, it going to sit for a couple months before the club competition, so another excuse to use some hops. On top of that, it was the last brew of a busy 2007 brew year, so might as well go out with a bang.

I thought about just taking an amber and beefing it up. I looked up Jamil’s recipes, and there are two in his book, one of his and one from Mike McDole. Mike’s was really hoppy, more something like an imperial brown, but had a pretty simple gain bill. I kind of felt like something a little more complex with all those hops. So, I pretty much split between the two recipes, taking the malt bill from one, and the hops from the other.

Now, I learned something with this beer. Last few times that I’ve dry hopped, I did it in the primary fermenter with pellets. I just toss them in there. I kind of like this technique since I don’t secondary, it’s easier than deal with the keg, no bags, plus I think the beer is ready to drink faster. There may also be a benefit of adding the hops while the yeast is still active, letting it scrub up any O2 that gets mixed in. Also lately, I’ve been transferring my beer in a completely closed system. I fill the keg with Star-San shake it around good, let it sit, then push it out with CO2. Then I hook up a line from my racking cane to a liquid QD and go right into the closed keg, with a gas QD stuck in the gas post to equalize pressure. I then push the beer out of the fermenter with CO2. This should be very sanitary with no O2 pick up. Great, right? Well, I’ve discovered while it’s a nice clean way of doing thing, all those pellet hops will clog up a bev QD in no time. So it was a bit of a mess and I ended up with lots of hops in my keg. I’m still trying to get it to clean up, but I’m still getting hop bits in glass. I’m about to give up and just transfer to a second keg, but I’ll let it sit a little while longer and keep pulling short glasses to flush it out. So, for future reference, don’t dry hop with lose pellets and use a QD to transfer.

So anyway, actually I’m not sure how this beer is yet. The pellets in the glass are giving a weird super hoppy flavor that I don’t really care for. It’s basically like crewing on pellets. Other than that (!!!) it’s seems pretty good. More to follow…

02/07/08 - I finally relented and transferred it to a new keg. There was a real mess on the bottom of the keg. It was a good choice to rack, since I don’t think it would ever have cleared. I’ll let it sit a while to resettle and we’ll see where we’re at. The first pull off the new keg still had some floaties.

03/03/08 - The beer as cleared up nicely with no more floaties. It’s astringent though, so not sure what to think about that. It has a lot of dry hops. and I was hopping it would mellow out, but it doesn’t seem to be improving. Oh well. It could also be the chocolate. I’m not a fan of that much chocolate in there – I think the original recipe used a lighter brand. This isn’t a style I get really excited about, but if/when I make it again, I’ll probably knock an off an ounce, and maybe try adding it at the end of the mash. Other than that, it has a nice mouthfeel and the hops are nice. It improves as it warms up a little.

So, here’s the recipe.

12/31/07
American Brown

6.5 gal batch
OG = 1.066
IBU = 60
80% Efficiency

13# Maris Otter
.75# C40
.5# UK Chocolate
.25# C60
.25# Victory

0.75 Centennial @ MH
1.0 Northern Brewer @ 60
1.0 Northern Brewer @ 15
1.5 Amarillo @ 10
1.5 Amarillo @ 1
2.0 Centennial @ Dry Hop

134 rest for 15 min
154 rest for 60 min
168 mashout
170 sparge for 30 min

WLP001 @ 67
Whirlfloc
Servo