Recipe for Honey Brown Ale

I just finished my third AG batch yesterday, and it is time to start planning my fourth batch for next week. The SWMBO would love some Honey Brown Ale. I have two problems in making the batch though.

1. I am too much of a noob to design my own recipes.

2. The recipe database, and the books I have on hand do not seem to have what I am looking for.

Her favorite for this style is JW Dundee’s Honey Brown. It is a lager, but I do not have the lagering capabilities just yet.

Does anyone have a recipe that they would be willing to share for something similar that is an ale?

I found a Honey Brown Ale that got decent reviews on beeradvocate.com, where the website had at least some information about it.

The site listed the grains as Pale Malt, Crystal Malt, Chocolate Malt, Honey, and Brown Sugar. The hops are listed as Hallertau, Fuggles, and Mt. Hood.

The OG is 1.059, and at 5.5% abv the final gravity works out as 1.017. The IBU's were not listed.

I have been playing around in beersmith, and got some numbers that were close, but not right on.

Please someone help me out in formulating a recipe.

That sounds nothing like JW Dundee's. IMO, Dundee's is sort of a watery, mild, certainly-not-sweet easy-drinking lager.

IMHO, when people hear the word honey, they expect something sweet, but honey is so fermentable that it actually has the opposite effect- drying out the beer and raising the alcohol.

Also, that's a really poor attenuation. Few yeasts would stop fermenting that quickly. They might deactivate the yeast somehow to make a beer like that.

screw it.


Use 3 pounds of honey malt, a quarter pound of honey (just so nobody questions why it's called a "honey" brown), a half pound of dextrine malt, 1-4 pounds of crystal, and make the rest up out of whatever pils or 2 row or maris otter that you have lying around.


Hop it however you'd like, but I'd aim for something like a Bierre de Garde, so probably 4-5 ounce of very low bitterness hops that give you lots of grassy hop flavor like you're eating a salad. Swing the other way though if you want a cleaner less intense flavor.

Thanks for the advice. I am looking for something that will be easy to drink. I will play around with what you have given me and try to come up with a recipe, if no one else has anything to add.