Bell's Best Brown

I've really taken a liking to this beer. I emailed the Brewhouse Manager at Bell's and asked for some advice. Here is a recipe I've formulated off of his suggestions:

OG:1.060



75% Maris Otter
10% Munich
7% Crystal 80
5% Biscut
3% Chocolate (with a mere touch of Black Patent)

I'm still stumped on the hops. He agreed that Goldings and Willamette or Fuggles would be good. I guess I'm targeting in the neighborhood of high 20's to 30 IBU's.

Thoughts?

Nearly all the clone recipes I have seen have Fuggles for the last two Aroma Additions. The grain Looks good are you going to Harvest the yeast from the bottle?

I love the Best Brown. I've had it on tap, but it really shines in a bottle.

Here's a replicator recipe from BYO. I tried it myself (from extract), and it turned out "meh." It was my very first brew, though, and I only did a half batch.

Bell’s Best Brown Ale (5 gallons, extract with grains)

OG = 1.058 FG = 1.013 IBUs = 30 ABV = 5.9%
Ingredients

* 6.6 lbs. Briess light malt extract syrup
* 14 oz. Briess Victory malt
* 14 oz. Briess Special Roast malt
* 14 oz. Briess crystal malt (60° L)
* 2 oz. Briess chocolate malt
* 6.2 AAU Cascade hops (bittering hop)
* (0.75 oz. of 8.3% alpha acid)
* 3.25 AAU Nugget hops (bittering hop)
* (0.25 oz. of 13% alpha acid)
* 1.2 AAU Fuggle hops (flavor hop)
* (0.25 oz. of 4.7% alpha acid)
* 2.4 AAU Fuggle hops (aroma hop)
* (0.5 oz. of 4.7% alpha acid)
* 1 tsp. Irish moss for 45 min.
* White Labs WLP001 (California Ale) or Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) yeast
* O.75 cup of corn sugar for priming

All-grain option:

Replace the light syrup with 8.25 lbs. 2-row pale malt. Mash all your grains at 155º F for 45 minutes. Collect enough wort to boil for 75 min. and have a 5.5-gallon yield. Lower the amount of the Cascade boiling hops to 0.5 of an ounce to account for higher extraction ratio of a full boil. The remainder of the recipe is the same as the extract.

RICLARK said:

Nearly all the clone recipes I have seen have Fuggles for the last two Aroma Additions. The grain Looks good are you going to Harvest the yeast from the bottle?

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I have not thought about that. I'm guessing they don't filter their beer?

Edcculus said:

I have not thought about that. I'm guessing they don't filter their beer?

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No none of there beer is filtered, to get an spot on clone you should Harvest there yeast.

I have brewed the BYO clone using WLP001 and it was very bland. It kind of came to age at about 6 months in the keg, but nothing like BBB. I would STRONGLY suggest harvesting from a bottle to get close to the flavor (or drive to Bells and ask for a pint of slurry!).

I just did the BYO clone of this and it's fermenting right now (see this thread) and I'm going to bourbon oak age it. The only thing I changed was I bumped the Victory, Special Roast, and Crystal 60 up to 1 pound each and corrected the Irish Moss to the 15 minute boil instead of 45 minute boil.

foxtrot said:

I have brewed the BYO clone using WLP001 and it was very bland.

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That is a great description of the clone recipe, foxtrot. Sort of ordinary. I used Safale-04. Not a bad beer, but I wouldn't buy a second six pack.

Edcculus said:

I've really taken a liking to this beer. I emailed the Brewhouse Manager at Bell's and asked for some advice. Here is a recipe I've formulated off of his suggestions:

OG:1.060



75% Maris Otter
10% Munich
7% Crystal 80
5% Biscut
3% Chocolate (with a mere touch of Black Patent)

I'm still stumped on the hops. He agreed that Goldings and Willamette or Fuggles would be good. I guess I'm targeting in the neighborhood of high 20's to 30 IBU's.

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Blast from the past-- did you ever refine this recipe?