English Brown Ale

[apcoach]

I'm brewing a partial mash/extract of a brown ale for my third batch so far. My question is about dry hopping. I plan to add .5 oz of each of the three hops i am boiling with including pearle. IS this a good strategy even though it is not in the recipe i was given?

 

[rifraf]

It's your beer, so it's your call! Just think on what it will do and decide if it's what you want. Dry hopping won't change the flavor but it will add an obvious hop smell which isn't necessarily true to style but isn't necessarily a bad thing. Take the three bags you have of hops and give them a smell at the same time. Decide if you want that smell while you're sipping a brown and if so, try it!

 

[sweed]

I brewed a brown 'english' ale for my first, and I added some centennial hops at the beginning, 1 oz, and 1.5oz of cascade- .75 at 30min, and .75oz at 15 mins. It tastes like a new castle( still warm uncarbed up during bottling, not hoppy, but like rifraf said, its not true for the style, but its your beer and you can try it out.
I only brewed this style becuase it came with my equipment. I'll taste test this one tomorrow after 6 days in the bottle.

 

[WoolyBooger]

I brewed an English Brown Ale with an ounce of Kent Goldings at 60 mins and an ounce of Liberty at 30 mins and an ounce of Willamette at 15 mins and I found it plenty hoppy for that style. I love hoppy beers as much as (or more than) the next guy. But I think dry hopping might override the mellow flavors of a brown ale. Just my opinion. You don't know until try it though. That's the fun of homebrewing!

 

[apcoach]

Great advice, thank you all. There is a brewery here in Indy that has a dry-hopped brown ale called Dirty Helen made by Barley Island. That was where the idea came from. It did seem to add some balance to the sweetness. The good thing is I have a week to decide

 

[apcoach]

The brew/boil/pitch went really well this morning which was the first time I used an ice bath to cool. The wort smells so good, maybe a will only dry hop about .5 oz of pearle hops for a little extra aroma and taste.