British Brown Ale Nut Brown AG

Williams 728
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I brewed the all grain recipe on Saturday with my BIAB process.

This was my first time using Nottingham, and I had not seen much airlock activity but saw a krausen had already come and gone. As of this morning it was already down to 1.018 from 1.058! Dang, Notty moves fast.

Going to give it a couple more days and see if I can get it closer to 1.012. then I will be adding 2 vanilla beans for 3 days (or to taste), cold crashing, then bottling.

Can't wait for this to be ready by Christmas.
 
I brewed an adaptation of this recipe today. I live outside of the USA and I'm not too familiar with the resources where I live yet so I had to make changes when I didn't have the ingredient exactly.

For example my maltster uses wyeremann malt so I used crafa 1, melanoiden, and caramunich 3 for the specialty grains. I also had to us S-04 since I don't have access to Nottingham.

But the beer looks and smells great so I hope it will do this recipe justice.

I'll update when I finally taste the beer.
 
Anyone know how well this beer ages? I have had in a keg for 16 days and was wondering. I don’t think it will make it 2 Weeks!

IMG_6955.jpg
 
I'm trying this recipe again, I loved it the first time, and can't wait for this weekend as its been a while since I last brewed it

This time 'm doing the ops recipe with slight changes

71.8% - Maris Otter
9.3% - Crystal 60
8% - Rolled oats
5% - Brown malt (not in op's recipe)
2.5% - biscuit from Castle malting instead of Victory
2% - Carafa 1
1.3% - carapils (not sure this is needed if the oats are their for mouth feel and head retention)

Hop schedule and yeast are the same

What do you think about the brown malt and biscuit addition?

I'm expecting a slightly roasted sweet coffee finish form the brown malt with hints of biscuit ie - breadier and a good compliment to MO
 
Oats don't increase head retention. In big numbers, they even decrease it. There are some well documented experiments on this available via Google search.
 
Miraculix said:
Oats don't increase head retention. In big numbers, they even decrease it. There are some well documented experiments on this available via Google search.
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Yea, you're right, I meant mouthfeel and body and not head retention.

So then I should keep the carapils?
 
Gravity said:
Yea, you're right, I meant mouthfeel and body and not head retention.

So then I should keep the carapils?
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Not sure I’d bother with carapils. I don’t think you’ll have any issues with head retention with this grain bill. The brown malt would be good and within style IMO.
 
Mine is missing something to be perfect! I have only been brewing since Aug but this Nut Brown AG is by far my best beer!

I’m learning more and more each brew! What can I do to give this beer more head? Look at this pic, looks flat. Taste better than it looks. Any suggestions ? I haven’t even kicked this keg and already looking to brew this again.


You can see above when I pour from the keg it has a nice head.
IMG_0010.jpg
 
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griffi said:
Not sure I’d bother with carapils. I don’t think you’ll have any issues with head retention with this grain bill. The brown malt would be good and within style IMO.
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thanks..I totally agree, brown malt would work well

any thoughts on the great victory vs biscuit debate?
 
jturman35 said:
Mine is missing something to be perfect! I have only been brewing since Aug but this Nut Brown AG is by far my best beer!

I’m learning more and more each brew! What can I do to give this beer more head? Look at this pic, looks flat. Taste better than it looks. Any suggestions ? I haven’t even kicked this keg and already looking to brew this again.


You can see above when I pour from the keg it has a nice head.
View attachment 548171
Click to expand...
Are you correcting your mash pH at all? This could be a factor.
 
Velnerj said:
I brewed an adaptation of this recipe today. I live outside of the USA and I'm not too familiar with the resources where I live yet so I had to make changes when I didn't have the ingredient exactly.

For example my maltster uses wyeremann malt so I used crafa 1, melanoiden, and caramunich 3 for the specialty grains. I also had to us S-04 since I don't have access to Nottingham.

But the beer looks and smells great so I hope it will do this recipe justice.

I'll update when I finally taste the beer.
Click to expand...
I finally got around to tasting this beer. I have to say that this beer is GREAT! thanks @lilsparky.

I do have a question. The beer is lacking carbonation and head. It is a little bit carbed just runs flat really quickly. Is it possibly one of these issues?

1. I am bottle conditioning and I calculated for 1.8 volumes. Which I understand is low but still within the style guidelines (I think). What kind of carbonation should I expect with 1.8 volumes? Perhaps it is fully carbed and it's just weak...


2. It's very possible that it's not finished priming yet. They've been in the bottles for about 17 days and perhaps after 30 days they'll be fully carbed up. Due to the cold temperature outside I was able to cold crash this beer. It cleared up amazingly well but perhaps this slowed to priming process. The beer got very cold ,around 5°C, and was bottled around 15°C which is much cooler than I usually do (around 22°C). Does cold crashing like this slow the priming process down? I prime around 22°C. Could I expect more carbonation to build up in the coming weeks or is 1.8 volumes going to give me a flat beer.

3. I see from other comments on here that ph plays a role with head retention. Can it also affect carbonation? I'm flying blind here as I don't have tools to check for ph, but I've never had a problem with carbonation or head retention before. This is the darkest beer I have ever brewed though so perhaps it's more acidic/base than my other beers (can't taste it though).

Thanks for any comments!
 
First AG brew and 4th brew overall. Must say that this beer is far and away the best beer to date for me. Easy to make and easier to drink. Not sure how long this keg is going to last but I'll enjoy it the whole way.

P.S. I spent months on this site without an account but this beer was so good that I had to create an account just to write a comment in. Good work Sparky.
 
This beer is delicious. It was my first all grain brew. Its very mild and perfect for all my non-hophead friends and family.
Even my father in law who is mostly a Lite Beer or Shinerbok drinker even thought it was really tasty. Another friend who mostly drinks "mexican beers" liked it.
I call it the "least offensive" beer I have ever brewed. I've already nearly kicked the keg in less than two weeks by sharing it out.
This brew is going to be in the regular rotation.
 
I brewed 8 galls of this on my second attempt and also built my first water profile using distilled. Definitely much better than my first attempt!

I kegged 5 gallons which you see here which is 2 weeks old. I also bottled 2.5 gallons using priming sugar for the first time. Definitely a easy drinker!

IMG_1521246301.967612.jpg

View attachment 562418
 
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Mighty fine! Made a similar ESB - 1318 - before this, and used the slurry on this thang. Love the extra chocolate malt and victory.

Only change to OP is that I used Maris Otter. Worth it, I think.

Many thanks, Sparky.
 
Sub'd might brew this weekend. Debating between getting Mexican Chocolate Cake clone made, or making another beer first and then trying to get the Cake made before the end of the month...
 
For those that substituted 2row with Maris Otter how is this different? I’m not experienced enough to know the difference between the two. I would imagine the Maris Otter is fuller mouthfeel.
 
jturman35 said:
For those that substituted 2row with Maris Otter how is this different? I’m not experienced enough to know the difference between the two. I would imagine the Maris Otter is fuller mouthfeel.
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As the majority of the grist and the primary base malt, it will give a more crackery/lightly_nutty/dark_bread_crust quality to the overall beer. In a beer like a "nut brown ale", maris otter would be an ideal candidate for the base malt. It's also going to increase the sweet perception of the beer, as well as darken the beer a bit. In this particular case, reducing the C60 to 0.75lb might be beneficial so that the finished product is not overly sweet or too dark (granted there's room for additional color).
 
Thanks! I love the original and I’m using this beer as a base to make my own recipe. I’m using this as an opportunity to learn and maybe some point Imperialize this beer.
 
Deciding on brewing this up tomorrow. Only changes I'm going with are Warrior for the 60 min hops, Northern Brewer for the 15 min hops and using some washed WY1272 for the yeast.
 
Hi all! Relatively new AG brewer here (~6 months or so), and this thread inspired me to finally sign up and post :) I'm brewing this recipe over the weekend, but thinking of trying something a little off the beaten path and doing a small (~2oz?) whole bean hazelnut coffee addition as a short (3 day) "dry hop".

Sounds like the recipe is a home-run based on all the feedback - would love to hear people's thoughts on the coffee addition. "Interesting Experiment" or "best way to ruin a good beer"?
 
I’ll take a stab at it since it’s a little slow around here with the 4th and all. If you’re new to AG, maybe you haven’t brewed a nut brown ale, or any brown ale for that matter, yet. This recipe is very good and has plenty of flavor by itself. I would recommend you try the recipe as is first. I personally like to experiment with ingredients, but my philosophy is to brew the classic style first. As to the coffee, I have added coffee to a couple of darker beers and I liked it. As to hazelnut, if I were wanting it in a beer, I think I would prefer to control the amount added by using hazelnut flavor separately - just my 2 cents.
 
Thanks, Griffi - you're right I haven't brewed a nut brown before. I actually just did this brew today, and just the amazing smell from the kettle had me rethinking the addition. I may split a little bit of the batch off into a mini-keg just to try the coffee thing for the hell of it, but I've got a few weeks to think about it :)

I take your point on the separate coffee and hazelnut flavors. The wife buys some rather high end fresh roasted whole bean coffee (high end to me anyway, I'm a Dunkin' Donuts guy lol) so the hazelnut coffee thing was more about me scavenging the cupboards :)

Thanks for the feedback, and will post the results!
 
bolus14 said:
Deciding on brewing this up tomorrow. Only changes I'm going with are Warrior for the 60 min hops, Northern Brewer for the 15 min hops and using some washed WY1272 for the yeast.
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To me the “nut” part of a nut brown doesn’t come from any nut additions and is quite subtle but very noticeable. Adding hazelnut coffee to this beer would make something interesting, but would completely overshadow the nuttiness of a nut brown. If I was to make the beer you are suggesting, I would call it a hazelnut coffee amber. Which sounds good to me.
 
This sounds like such a awesome fall time brew! Hopefully I remember to come back and check it out again this fall
 
I have brewed this beer twice both times made really good beer. Have my 3rd version in the keg but this time I used Maris Otter instead of 2row and bumped up the chocolate a little. Can’t wait to see how it turns out.
 
I have made this several times as well. Excellent recipe. I now make it a little different with Thomas Fawcett Optic malt (pale malt), as the base grain and I also use cocao nibs in the fermenter. Beautiful chocolate milk stout!

Cheers,

John
 
Just my 2 cents after drinking about half of my bottles so far.
I do BIAB and started with too much water, have been brewing more hoppy beers lately and forgot to reduce the amount of water due to using fewer hops in this. So with that said, I would agree with most that the base recipe is pretty solid, mine was a little thinner/watery than I'd like but that's my fault. Personally, I think I would make a couple changes next time though, I would go with 1lb of Victory and at least .5oz of Chocolate. I think this would up the nuttiness and darken it so it looks more like a brown ale, for mine and pics of others it looks more like a dark Amber than a brown.
Otherwise, if you like browns or beers with good malty flavors give this a shot.
 
We just tried this (using Mar. Ott instead as base) and ended up with a stuck mash! It could possibly be our aging steel braid system, but we added rice hulls before giving up and using cheesecloth to manually strain the malt before re-soaking and repeating with the sparge water. All in all a horrendous process that I recommend to nobody! We gotta work on that, but I can guarantee it has NOTHING to do with the recipe.

After a boil, however, we ended up with something in the area of 1.064 OG, 5G. Wort tasted very sweet with no astringency, so I am hopeful. Got the sucker in the fermenter at 64F as its bubbling away. Worst case, we add maltodextrin to help the body if it attenuates too much.

TLDR: Stuck mash, fixed it, DWHAHB
 
Update on the above:

FG was 1.011, and a long cold crash made it crystal clear.

Only a little over 2 weeks in the bottle and it tastes phenomenal. Its malty and has a touch of chocolate and nut flavor. It tastes intensely, for us, of roast, caramel and a touch of burnt sugar (in a good way). Hop character is minimal. It hold a head quite well, and looks beautiful.

We've gotten nothing but good reviews on this so far, even from people that have historically not been fans of brown ales.

Thats another good review for this one!
 
Chocolate malt doesn’t taste anything like chocolate to me. I definitely got color out of it but if anything the subtle nuttiness came from the chocolate malt. I made a nut brown that is very close to this recipe. Like you I used Maris Otter. It turned out great. I love how this beer is so accessible and yet complex. I prefer my brown ale to be a little bit more session with an OG of around 1.045.
 
I just bottled this and so far I am very impressed. I let some friends, who aren't big on browns, taste it and they loved it. I used Minch Malt's Hook Head Ale malt as my base malt which gave it a nice sweet biscuit flavor. My OG was right on at 1.054 but I got a FG of 1.008...new hydrometer, so maybe it was off? I used Nottingham but I've never seen it chew through a beer like that. In any case, its not too dry and has a nice chocolate-nutty flavor.

Definitely going to brew this again soon. Thanks!
 

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