Who Here Likes NewCastle Brown?

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Who Here Likes NewCastle Brown Ale? (Disregarding the Price)

  • A must have. It's one of my top-5 (commercial) favorites.

  • Really enjoy it and would drink it anytime.

  • An okay drinkable beer but nothing to write home about.

  • Not impressed. Didn't do anything for me.

  • Echhhhh!


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BierMuncher

...My Junk is Ugly...
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I enjoyed it as a smooth easy-drinker. I also spent about 1.5 hours yesterday formulating a recipe based on the BYO 150 Clone Issue.

What say yous? Tried it? Liked it? Would brew it if you had a recipe?
 
I've seen a lot of recipes floating around for clones. I may make something like that (or in that vein) for my wife; she likes darker, smooth, somewhat sweet beers. I can't say that it's my favorite style, but it's always nice to have something like that kicking around.
 
It used to be my favorite style before I became a hophead. I'd still take a Newcastle if the establishment I'm at doesn't have anything "more flavorful".

Quite a few places around here have it on tap, so I still drink it quite often, but I'd say the brown ale style is a bit boring most times.

FWIW, a brown ale was the very first beer I ever brewed.
 
I like it. Sometimes it's really tasty on tap. Mostly it's rather unremarkable - a bit watery, unassuming flavor, usually I'd rather have something else.

Like Dude, I'll order it at a bar/restaurant if the alternatives are light macros and crap imports.
 
I used to drink it at university. The quality of the cask ale was kind of variable in the places I used to frequent so drinking Newcastle was a better bet, as it was bottled.

I also drank it while working in Germany for a year. I got tired of Alt, Kolsch and Hefe so turned to a little bit of home in a bottle :)

/Phil.
 
Always been a fan of newcastle. If not a huge selection at the bar/restaurant, I'll gladly take a newcastle. Been known to pick up a 6 pack sometimes as well.
 
I dig it from time to time. As BierMuncher says, it's a good "easy drinker" which is why I have a clone of it on deck for my next brew session.

Most BMC drinkers will tolerate Newcastle better than I will tolerate BMC, so it's a good choice for entertaining. After a while I do get burnt out on it though, since it is on the sweet side and perhaps a bit too one-dimensional in flavor.

On a related note, I've heard it's quite good for cleaning/restoring antique wood furniture (although I'm sure just about any beer will work for that.)
 
It's OK and I'll drink it if the restaurant has it and only BMC as alternatives. I don't buy it at the store.
 
When I first ventured away from BMC, Newcastle was my beer of choice. I tried one by accident and liked it. I still like it a lot, but I wouldn't say it is my favorite. I still by a six pack on occasion.:p
 
i enjoy a good newcastle...will probably do a clone sometime. it's not my absolute favorite beer, but is one of only two beers i enjoy from the corner store next to my apt. the only other beer i buy from there is anchor steam.
 
I haven't had it on tap, but I bought a 6-pack once, and I'd have to agree with Yuri that it was watery and lacking much flavor.
 
I think it's ok- it's easy to drink and not harsh. English brown ale was my first homebrew, and its very forgiving. I would order one if there wasn't anything else I like better.
 
I've always enjoyed Newcastle, although I find the quality tends to vary a lot from bottle to bottle.

A Newcastle clone was the first thing I brewed after my 20 year brewing sabbatical ended, and a direct side-by-side taste test with the genuine article was a real eye opener to the power of homebrew. Compared to mine, the real stuff tasted bland and watery, and while it had very little hop bitterness it did have a distinct skunkiness about it. Mine had identical color and the same base flavor, but it had a vastly superior mouthfeel, no skunky smell and a wonderful touch of caramel finish. It just seemed fresh and alive, while the Newcastle seemed lazy and dead. (Mine was a touch more carbonated, which could be a factor.)

Now I'm certainly no master-brewer, I know that for a fact. But if an amateur can make something superior to it's commercial counterpart, in his first attempt after a 20 year layoff, using extract on his kitchen stove, it's mind boggling to think what some of the more experienced people on here must be brewing!
 
That skunkiness is definitely a problem in store bought bottles of Newcastle Brown. I don't recall ever having one that wasn't slightly skunked at least. Newcastle should follow the lead of other English breweries (Samuel Smith comes to mind) where they went to brown bottles.
 
I drank only Newcastle while on vacation and liked it a lot. This inspired me to brew my first brown ale, which after seeing the clone recipe was two brews, I went with the most chocolate malt in the clone brews magazine--Abita brown ale. This is in the kegerator ATM and tastes more like a stout. Go figure.
 
Well it appears that Newcastle is well respected as a middle of the road beer. Seems to be the "Switzerland" of beers. Doesn't offend anyone and doesn't have a die-hard following like certain IPA's and hefe's.

I ordered the ingredients for my clone and I'm hoping I got it right. I like it well enough and seems to be a beer that can convert some of those "I don't drink dark beer" drinkers to drinking this dark beer.

I think the Whitbread yeast is the key to getting that slight plum undertone.

BYO's clone recipe called for brewing two separate 5-gallon batches (a heavier dark ale and a lighter ABV amber) and then blending the two beers at 2 parts dark and 3 parts light.

Since I do 10-gallon batches, I decided to scale the dark ale down to 4 gallons and scale the lighter amber up to 6 gallons...then simply combine the ingredients of those two recipes for my 10 gallon batch. This would give me the 60-40 mix of beer...doing one brew. Seemed like a logical approach to getting close.

I am tweaking a few things that seem to be universally "wrong" with the beer... according to beer critics. No lasting head is one complaint so I'm adding some cara. "Watery" seems to be another description so I'm increasing the crystal as well. CYO called for Challenger and I'm going with Target as this seems to be the hop of choice for bittering.

I'll keep you posted on the outcome and if it passes muster, I'll post the recipe on the database.
 
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