English based Brown

I have tried various sour beers and the style I keep coming back to are the Flander's beers. The dark fruit flavors and maltiness blends very well with the sour and mild funk. Most lambics (all?) seem out of balance to me as they have no real malt flavor to back up the fermentation character.

Most recipes I have seen seem to use entirely what I would call continental malts eg. Pilsner, vienna, munich, Special B. I figured I would give it a try with more of an english malt theme. I am looking for a nice malt background with good dark fruit character. Below is the recipe I may try and was interested to hear any input. Either from people who have tried it or people who can take a guess at the finished product. Any thoughts?

50% Crisp Marris Otter
40% Ashbourne Mild Malt
5% Crisp Dark Crystal (~70L)
2.5% Crisp Extra Dark Crystal (~120L)
2.5% Briess Chocolate Malt (~350L)

Mash at 156F

EKG to 20 IBU

Fermentation: Roselare blend from start at ambient (~65F). After primary fermentation rack to secondary and add dreg blend (house blend of whatever sour dregs I have found stored under PBR). Age till ready.

Why mild malt?

1. I have about twenty pounds sitting around.

2. Thought it might help with the malt character.

what beers do you like? I ask because while both lambics and reds/browns are blended the flanders beers are blended with young malty beer to get the profile you like, and most commercial examples are pasteurized to maintain this

Right, so the only commercial examples of red/brown I can get are rodenbach, petrus, and liefmans and I like all of those.

For lambic I prefer the boon beers as they seem less acidic and a bit funkier than the haansens and lindemans. Oddly enough I haven't had cantillon or 3F. Just had haansens Oude kriek and thought it would take the enamel off my teeth it was so sour.

I know I won't get the sweetness that the commercials have or the mouthfeel. I prefer the malt flavors associated with them more I think. Either way it will be a double experiment. Do I like the browns without residual sweetness and what does it taste like using a malt profile similar to this?

Og. 1.060

45% Crisp Marris Otter
45% Ashbourne Mild Malt
5% English Dark Crystal (~70L)
2.5% English Extra Dark (~160L)
2.5% Fawcett Pale Choc.

Bittered to ~20 Ibus
1 hr boil

Brewed on saturday, bit better efficiency so wound up with 4.24 gallons of wort into primary.

Pitched 3763, 24hrs later activity began

Taste in about a week when I transfer, age for 1.5+ years.

I'd be interested to hear how this turns out. In addition to the Red I'm planning on also doing a Bruin, I too like Flanders sours the best. I have to say I'm still not sure about the whole sweetening aspect. I don't really want to do a sour mash, I'd rather just pitch 3763 from the get go, but I also have no where to do an extended cold crash if I attempt to back-blend with a malty young beer. I live in a small apartment and can't sacrifice the fridge space... What are you thinking?

I really like the looks of the recipe, might try something similar this summer

Still too young for a tasting to see how it's coming. Has a thin pellicle but that's all I know.

I do not plan on sweetening it. In my opinion the best way to do so would be in the glass or to keg it. May try in the glass once it's done and try some fruit syrups.