Mild "Brown" Ale

Most of the people that try my beer drink BMC or foofy stuff. So I considered trying to make a brown colored ale to begin introducing brown ales to them, slowly convert them little by little.

One way I've considered that I can add color without the typical flavors is to boil all of my extract.

Are there any grains I can add that won't push it towards a roasty taste, but will add color?

I'm thinking of a "brown" blonde as they greatly enjoy those.

I'm trying for maybe 15* + SRM and <20 IBU's.

Messing around with the calculator I have so far:

4.3 gal batch
4 lbs Briess pilsen LME
1 lb Briess Bavarian wheat DME
8 oz crystal 20
6 oz crystal 60
2 oz crystal 120
1/4 lb Briess extra light DME (starter)
3/4 oz Liberty (3.9%) @ 45/15 mins
1/2 oz Liberty @ 5 mins
WLP 001

That gives me:
1.047/1.011
9* SRM
19.7 IBU's
4.8% ABV


I'm a little concerned the 60 and 120 will still be quite noticeable.

I usually get several extra points of OG sometimes giving me around 0.5% ABV additional alcohol content.

Any ideas for a mild "brown" blonde ale?

I did a mild over a year ago that came out really good. It's a bit stronger than the style normally calls for, but it was still really good. If you plug it into BeerSmith, you can convert it to extract with specialty grains. I get the British crystal malts from Farmhouse. You could also substitute Wyeast 1335 for the 1882-PC yeast.

That 2 ounces of 120 will hardly be noticeable. I would think you'd want them to taste it!

You could also sub in some amber DME, which has Munich malt and C-60 in the mix (IIRC from the Briess website). You're not really going to get roasty flavors from any of that.

Ambers are kinda iffy with them. They will drink it, but would prefer another blonde.

I didn't want to start off making much and I like to order 4 lbs of LME as it's cheaper than DME. And I add Bavarian wheat for head retention.

Roughly how much color is added by boiling all of the extract for an hour? I recall, before I held most of it for flameout, that my beers were a bit darker than they were supposed to be.

Find an English Mild recipe and brew that. Mine were bigger versions of a mild.

My only amber batch didn't come out as well as I would have liked (the first half at least, need to tap the second keg) due to the yeast used. Didn't care, at all, for the blonde I brewed. I still have bottles of that in the basement.

I'd much rather have a brunette than a blonde.

rodwha said:

Roughly how much color is added by boiling all of the extract for an hour? I recall, before I held most of it for flameout, that my beers were a bit darker than they were supposed to be.

Click to expand...

Dunno, since I've not brewed with extract in almost two years (only used it in my first four batches, the fourth being a partial mash).