Brown Ale

I have been very busy over the last month, both in life, and with brewing. So busy, in fact, that I have fallen way behind on writing these posts.  This begins the first of a few rapid fire posts re-capping the last month (in which I brewed three beers).

A week after the IPA I brewed a brown ale.  Shout out to Clemente for doing the brunt work on the recipe.  As you probably noticed the majority of the beers I have made up until the now are leaning more towards the 'extreme' side.  Double IPAs, coffee porters, and jalapeno chocolate stouts, while delicious, are not exactly beers for newcomers to the craft beer world.  With that I wanted to make a beer that could be enjoyed by even the newest member of the craft beer club (a first time customer to my theoretical brew pub perhaps?).  This brown ale is meant to be a good session ale.  BeerAdvocate defines a session beer:

session beer (noun)

Any beer that contains no higher than 5 percent ABV, featuring a balance between malt and hop characters (ingredients) and, typically, a clean finish - a combination of which creates a beer with high drinkability. The purpose of a session beer is to allow a beer drinker to have multiple beers, within a reasonable time period or session, without overwhelming the senses or reaching inappropriate levels of intoxication. (Yes, you can drink and enjoy beer without getting drunk.) 


Brewing Details:


Ingredients:
Grains:
2-row malt
Crystal malt
Amber malt
Chocolate malt

Hops:
East Kent Goldings
Hallertau
Willamette

Yeast:
American Ale

Misc:
Brown Sugar

OG: 1.050
FG: 1.016
ABV: 4.5%


After the coffee porter coming in too light in terms of mouth feel I wanted to make sure this brown ale was a little fuller bodied and that the malt character would shine through.  In order to make that happen I mashed at a higher temperature (155-156).  

Here is a photo of the wort during lautering/sparging.  Lautering is the process of removing the wort form the spent grains.  Sparging is the act of pouring hot water (~180 degrees) over the spent grains to rinse the remaining sugars from the grains.

I boiled for the usual 1 hr. I used whole Kent Goldings hops (because I had them leftover from a previous beer) for bittering, Hallertau (pellet hops) for finishing, and Willamette (pellet as well) for aroma.  A pound of brown sugar was also added to enhance the flavor. After boiling the wort was cooled and the yeast was pitched.  The brown ale then joined the IPA in the closet to ferment.

To my surprise this was the first time that I had two fermenters full with beer at the same time.  I actually had to postpone brewing the brown ale in order to go buy a second air lock.

The brown ale was bottled in the same weekend as the IPA (there will be a separate post for that), and today I had the first taste.

This is a delicious beer!  It fits all the requirements laid out for a session ale:  malty, well balanced, low alcohol, clean finish, and easy to drink.   The color is a very nice dark brown. The aroma is malty and subtle.  You can taste the maltiness, the brown sugar,  and there is a nice coffee note that compliments the overall flavor. The finish leaves you reaching for another sip before you even put down the glass.  I am very pleased with this beer. When I brew it again I won't change a thing.