Fall is fast approaching and it’s that time of year when many craft beer fans start looking at darker beers to keep them feeling warmer over the cold winter months. Popular American-style Brown Ale is a hoppier version of its English counterpart, most famously Newcastle Brown, and offers a lighter, easier-to-drink alternative to other dark beers such as Porter or Stouts.
One of the very first ales I brewed was a brown ale and to be honest, it was quite disappointing. From a kit I purchased at the local brew shop, it was a malt extract kit from a generic brand and was pretty bland and flavorless – even adding extra hops didn’t help!
Fortunately, there are many better homebrew beer recipes out there for American Brown Ales now, either that or I have just got better at homebrewing!
My latest attempt at an American Brown Ale produced a delicious beer that had that fresh hop aroma backed by a balanced malt flavor of chocolate malts with biscuit malt, just what a good American Brown Ale should taste like.
Let’s take a look at what you should be aiming for with the best American Brown Ale recipe (extract & all-grain) before jumping in with a couple of my favorite recipes for this popular beer style. Happy brewing, people!
The Style Profile of an American Brown Ale
Appearance
A dark color, an American brown Ale should range from a light tan or amber to a dark, almost black mud color. A low to medium-density head will normally be white in color but can range to a light khaki shade.
Aroma
The aroma of dark malt will normally be more pronounced than an English-style brown ale but should be less than a Porter-style beer. A malt sweetness should be evident with hints of caramel, chocolate, nutty, and a toasty bread-like aroma.
Being an American Brown Ale, you would expect a fresh hops aroma, but this will still be below a mid-level of aroma hops in most American Brown Ales. Don’t expect that strong hop aroma you will find in an IPA, but often an American Brown Ale will showcase a sort of aroma found with some of the more citrussy American hops.
Fruity esters will remain lower and balance with the sweetness of specialty malts. Diacetyl should never be found in the beer aroma.
Flavor
The medium-high malt flavor should be perfectly balanced with the hops in the American style of this beer. Deep chocolate malt flavors with hints of toasty or caramel flavors are very common.
The hoppy bitterness should be of mid to medium-high level with a modest American hop like Cascade hops used for the hop flavor and moderate levels of bitterness.
The medium dry finish normally leaves an aftertaste that features hoppy bitterness and a sweet malt character. Light to moderate esters will be present but dactyl should be extremely low if present at all.
Mouthfeel
With a moderately high level of carbonation, the mouthfeel should be that of medium to medium full-bodied ale. Examples of brown ale which use more hops can be perceived to be drying while stronger versions can have some more alcoholic warmth.
Pairing Beer with Food – American Brown Ales
The balanced malt and hop profile of an American Brown Ale makes it the perfect beer to pair with almost any food. Dark brown ales such as these pair well with sausages, bbq chicken, burgers, seafood, and any spicy foods, too.
Cheeses like a moderately sharp cheddar go really well with an American Brown Ale. Any caramel-style dessert also pairs well with the dark ale chocolatey ale.
Tips for Home Brewing American Brown Ale
Let’s take a look at arguably the three most important ingredients in any brew, the grains used, the hops, and the yeast.
Grains
The grist of choice for an American Brown Ale is most commonly some type of American pale malt, usually a domestic 2-row malt. This base malt should constitute up to 85 % of the total grain bill, with crystal malts often added for extra complexity, depth of character, and to add that dark color.
Dark crystal malts can be added but tend to be less sweet and give more of a burnt caramel flavor to the beer reminiscent of raisins. Amber malts can also be considered for a brown ale, either instead of or with crystal malt. Roasted malts are sometimes added for deepening the pale copper color you may get if using a pale malt in the grains bill.
Specialty malts that are often used include Aromatic, special roast chocolate malt, Cara-Pils dextrine malt, or black malt (normally only 2%).
For those brewers who like to use partial extract kits, substitute your base grist for a high-quality amber malt extract and do a partial mash with the crystal malts and any other specialty malts you have chosen to use.
Hops
The main difference between an English brown ale and an American Brown ale is how and what hops it uses. Being American, we prefer much bolder hop flavors and aromas than our English cousins across the pond.
Cascade is usually a preferred hop to use for an American brown ale, but other varieties such as Mt Hood, Williamette, US Goldings, and many others can produce an interesting brown ale with a clean bitterness. There are no hard and fast rules, but hops should be of an American variety if you want a true American Brown Ale.
Some recipes may call for several stages of hopping, including dry-hopping for the hoppier brown ales. Try to hit a target of 0.90 to 1.0 clean bitterness or BU: GU ratio (divide the IBU by gravity points).
Yeast
An American Brown Ale usually has a clean and balanced finish with very little, if any at all, flavor added by the type of yeast used. An American strain of yeast that is neutral, clean, and well-attenuating would be the ideal choice for this style of brown ale.
Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) or White labs WLP060 would be two good choices of liquid yeast to use. While a good dry yeast choice could be either Daystar Nottingham or Safale US-05 so as not to impart any extra flavors into the ale.
The other factor you should consider in brewing your own American Brown Ale is the water you use. High carbonate water works particularly well with this style as it helps to accentuate the maltiness.
The water should also contain some salt, we recommend using about 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of salt (depending on your personal preferences) for every five gallons. This salt can be added to the boil.
Gypsum can also be used in moderate quantities as you don’t want too many sulphates in the brew. Instead, you could use calcium chloride for a lower sulphate content with carbonates slightly below 160ppm.
A Classic American Brown Ale Recipe (Both Full-Grain and Partial Extract)
These American Brown Ale recipes have been modeled after some of the popular brown ales made by our favorite craft breweries. Although a bit hoppier than what many would consider a traditional brown ale, even an American one, for many craft beer lovers that’s not a bad thing!
Using some complex malts brings a range of caramel, biscuit, and chocolate flavors to the brew finely balanced with low-alpha hops for that hoppy aroma and clean bitterness.
To further enhance the clean bitterness and hop aroma a technique known as “first wort hopping” has been used where some of the hops are added to the wort just before it comes to a boil, which helps keep more of the hops’ aromatic compounds in the brew.
NOTE: Both recipes make a 5-gallon batch and should be primed before bottling with a 3/4 cup of corn sugar, a 2/3 cup of table sugar, or 1 1/4 cups of dry malt extract. If you want a more accurate method, you could always use an online priming calculator. If you’re either bottling or kegging, you should be looking for about 2.4 volumes of CO2.
American Brown Ale Recipe – The All-Grain Version
Specs
- OG: 1.058
- FG: 1.011
- ABV: 6.2%
- IBUs: 42
- SRM: 23
Ingredients – The Grain Bill
- 10 lbs. 2-row malt
- 1 lb. caramel 60L malt
- 0.5 lb. chocolate malt
- 0.5 lb crystal 77L malt
Hops and When to Add To The Boil
- 1.5 oz. Williamette hops – THE FIRST WORT HOPS
- 1 oz. US Goldings Hops – 10 MINUTES
- 1 tsp. Irish Moss – 10 MINUTES
- 0.5 oz. Williamette Hops – 30 MINUTES
- 2 oz. US Golding Hops – 60 MINUTES
1 packet Safale US-05 ale yeast
Directions:
Step 1. Mash the crushed grains for one hour at 150ºF.
Step 2. Sparge the wort to collect 7.5 gallons in your brew kettle, adding the first wort hops before bringing it to a boil.
Step 3. Boil for 60 minutes, adding the extra hops and Irish hop according to the schedule given above in the ingredients list.
Step 4. Chill the wort and then transfer it to a clean, sanitized fermenting vessel and ferment at 68 – 70ºF until the final gravity reading hits 1.011.
Step 5. Prime using your chosen priming sugar, then bottle and leave to age for 4 to 6 weeks.
Classic American Brown Ale – The Partial Mash Recipe
Specs
- OG: 1.058
- FG: 1.011
- ABV: 6.2%
- IBUs: 42
- SRM: 23
Ingredients – The malts
- 6 lbs. light dry malt extract
- 1 lb. six-row malt
- 1 lb. caramel 60L malt
- 0.5 lb. chocolate malt
- 0.5 lb. crystal 77L malt
The Hops
- 1.5 oz. Williamette hops – THE FIRST WORT HOPS
- 1 oz. US Goldings Hops – 10 MINUTES
- 1 tsp. Irish Moss – 10 MINUTES
- 0.5 oz. Williamette Hops – 30 MINUTES
- 2 oz. US Golding Hops – 60 MINUTES
- 1 packet Safale US-05 ale yeast
Directions:
Step 1. Steep the crushed grains in one gallon of water at 152ºF for 30 minutes.
Step 2. Strain the wort into your brew kettle, adding enough water to make 3.5 gallons.
Step 3. Mix in the dry malt extract and add the first wort hops (1.5 oz. Williamette) before bringing it to a boil.
Step 4. Boil for 60 minutes while adding the hops and Irish moss at the times indicated in the ingredients list above.
Step 5. Chill the wort and then transfer it to a clean, sanitized fermenting vessel and ferment at 68 – 70ºF until the final gravity reading hits 1.011.
Step 6. Prime using your chosen priming sugar, then bottle and leave to age for 4 to 6 weeks.
An Alternative Recipe – Janet’s Brown Ale (Courtesy of the American Homebrewers Association)
This popular American Brown Ale recipe has quite a pedigree, first winning the Gold medal at the National Homebrew Competition in 2004 by Mike “Tasty” McDole in the Brown Ale Category.
As a perfect example of a hoppier and bigger American Brown Ale, Mike updated the recipe as an Imperial Brown Ale in 2009 and took home gold again at the NHC in 2009.
Although it deviates a little from the classic American Brown Ale, you can always reduce the ABV to a more reasonable 6.6% by omitting the corn sugar. Although, I’m sure most hop-heads out there won’t be too worried by the higher IBUs.
Specs
- Yield: 5 Gallons (US)
- OG: 1.074
- FG: 1.018
- ABV: 6.6% to 7.2%
- IBU: 38
- SRM: 20
Ingredients – The Grain Bill
- 11.8 lb. (5.35 kg) pale malt
- 1.3 lb. (590 g) dextrin malt
- 1 lb. (454 g) 40L crystal malt
- 0.8 lb. (363 g) wheat malt
- 0.4 lb. (181 g) 350L chocolate malt
- 0.5 lb. (227 g) corn sugar @ 0 min
The Hops and When to Add
- 1.25 oz. (35 g) US Northern Brewer pellet hops, 5.1% (mash)
- 1.25 oz. (35 g) US Northern Brewer pellet hops, 5.1% . (60 min)
- 0.75 oz. (21 g) US Northern Brewer pellet hops, 5.1%. (15 min)
- 1.25 oz. (35 g) Cascade pellet hops, 5.6% (10 min)
- 1.75 oz. (50 g) Cascade whole hops, 5.8% (0 min, hopback)
- 1.75 oz. (50 g) Centennial pellet hops, 10.5% (dry hop)
Yeast
- Lallemand LalBrew BRY-97 West Coast Ale Yeast, Fermentis US-05, Wyeast 1217-PC West Coast IPA, or White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast
Directions:
Step 1. Mash the malts along with the Northern Brewer mash hops for 30 minutes at 154ºF before raising the temperature to 170ºF and holding for 15 minutes.
Step 2. Sparge at 170ºF for 45 minutes and collect 6.5 gallons of wort.
Step 3. Heat the wort to boiling point and a boil for 60 minutes, adding the hops at the times indicated above in the ingredients list.
Step 4. Chill the wort to around 68ºF and then pitch your yeast. Ferment at temperatures between 60ºF and 68ºF until fermentation is complete.
Step 5. Prime with 1 cup of corn syrup if bottling, or it can be served from the keg and naturally conditioned in the aging process.
Happy brewing, I hope you enjoy your home-brewed and no doubt delicious American Brown Ale!