Advice on Southern English Brown Ale?

I'd like to put together a Southern English Brown Ale for a wedding in about 5 weeks. There's not a lot of info about this style out there. From what I have been able to find I think this could work out pretty well but I'm curious about how all this dark crystal will mellow out:

5# Maris Otter (63.9%)
1# Toasted Maris Otter (350F for 15 min) (12.8%)
0.5# Midnight Wheat (6.3%)
0.25# Caramunich (3.1%)
0.25# Crystal 60L (3.1%)
0.5# Crystal 120L (6.3%)
0.5# Special B (6.3%)
15 IBU Styrian Goldings (4.5%AA)

OG 1.036 (70%), SRM 29.6, 3.7% ABV calculated

Uses 18.8% crystal malt; 6.2% light, 12.6% dark. Using 0.5# Midnight Wheat (~Chocolate) and the toasted MO to round out the dark crystal.

I think it looks good. I brewed the classic styles version last year which turned out pretty well and that has similar if not more dark crystal malts. I also a few weeks ago had a bottle of Mann's brown ale which I think is the only commercial version available or at least the classic version anyway. That seemed fairly thin compared to what i remember the homebrew version was but still pretty nice, although at 2.8% alc it was a bit weaker than the classic styles recipe.

I'm glad someone's having a go, may try your recipe in a batch in the not too distant future.

I've used that much crystal a few times and the brews were delicious, but they took a couple of months in the bottle before they were even drinkable. It's probably different in keg though.

This style of beer may be better suited to playing board games than drinking at a wedding party where people are dancing up a sweat.

Don't get me wrong. I just split a 10 gallon brown ale batch for 3 different yeasts. I love to experiment but you are talking about a wedding. After all, there is a reason that every wedding dance party starts with "Just take those old records off the shelf..." People really want to experience what they already know.

Have you looked at Biermuncher's "Aberdeen Brown Ale" recipe? I would consider that one because he tends to make beers of very wide easy-drinking appeal.

The wedding opportunity passed by - catering won't let me.

There is a Christmas office party in 3 months - I'm doing a Tripel and maybe this SEBA or just Deception Cream Stout.

I've seen some sample recipes where 2# of dark crystal are used in this small beer. Just needed some backup to make sure that wouldn't turn out nasty.

New recipe (after five revisions):
6.5# MO
0.75# Muntons Crystal 90L
0.5# Muntons Crystal 150L
0.5# Special B
0.25# Briess Midnight Wheat
0.125# Briess Blackprinz

1.040 OG, 4% ABV

It looks like you're a very experienced brewer.
I read Ray Daniels book, "Designing Great Beers." He suggests to start with a really simple recipe and build from there.
For Brown Ale:
10-15% crystal malt
2-3% chocolate malt
and perhaps some black malt (<5%)
I think that if you follow those guidelines you can get a good idea of what those malts create and then move to modify it for your tastes.
Too many new ingredients make the outcome really random.

The way my recipe works out it's 20% dark UK crystal, 3% midnight wheat (chocolate), and about 1.5% blackprinz (black malt). Those last two are supposed to be smoother than the typical chocolate/black malts so hopefully they work with the dark crystal malt.

Some of the recipes for Pete's Wicked Brown Ale use quite a bit of crystal, but just one type (C60) like you suggested.

This has some randomness to it but I've gone through a bunch of different versions with Caramunich, Victory, US crystals, and other things but this is what looked finally looked good to me on paper. This will definitely have to sit for a while for all the dark fruit to come out.

Haven't had a chance to play around with much crystal above 60L.

EDIT: Oh damn, I forgot Designing Great Beers had a section on Brown Ales. I should have read it a bit more. Just brewed up this latest revision last night, it looks and smells very good.

Let us know how it tastes about 2 months down the road!

Still too much roast for now. I was able to cut it 50/50 with a blonde ale for a 1G batch of cask ale. It is drinkable by itself though.

The beer has a pretty thick pellicle on it now. Probably Brett C because that's what was in there before and try as I might it probably didn't sterilize 100%.

If the Brett really attacks the body I'll need something like lactose.