My quest for the elusive American Brown Ale...

[dunnright00]

One of my favorite styles is Brown Ale, and more specifically, American Brown Ale.

It seems to be harder and harder to find new examples of this style, at least at the bottle shops I go to. It seems like for every brown ale I find, there are a couple dozen IPAs, Stouts and Belgian whatevers (not that I don't like any of these!).

So I was wondering if we could compile a list of favorite Brown Ales. I've looked at the BJCP Examples, and some I can't seem to find in my area.

So, some of my favorites have been Moose Drool, Lost Coast Downtown Brown, and locally Manzanita Gilespie Brown (although, this is more of an Imperial Brown).

The beer that sparked the idea for me to start this thread was a beer I had last night, New English - Brewer's Special Brown Ale.
MAN!!! What a fantastic beer! Perfect balance of roasty malt flavor and hop-bite bitterness. If you can get this San Diego beer, Get it!!!

Ok, so what's your favorite(s)?

Edit: Also, since this is a homebrewing forum, do you have a favorite recipe? Post it!
If it's already here on the forum, just post a link.

 

[Grinder12000]

Best brown ale I know is Rogues Hazelnut Nectar. Downtown Brown is SO weird as it tastes exactly like the barley that goes into it.

 

[cdubbaya]

Bells makes a brown ale that's fantastic too. I'm pretty sure they distributed to California but I can't be certain. I've yet to have a beer from Bells that's wasn't good.

Sent from Space using Home Brew Talk App. Yes, Space.

 

[lowtones84]

+1 to Bell's Best Brown. I'm not sure how well it fits into BJCP style guidelines or whatever, but I think it's great!

 

[bob1852]

Oak Creek Nut Brown is a great beer; but I think it's only available in Arizona.

My favorite brown ale ever was the Nutz Brown from Coyote Springs (again, only in Arizona), but they're no longer in existence.

I've a couple brown ale recipes in my drop down menu that are good...

Here's the recipes for that Coyote Springs brown ale that the brewer provided to one of the LHBS in the Phoenix area. Disclaimer, I have not made it.

http://www.brewersconnection.com/recipes/nutzbr.htm

 

[dunnright00]

Ya, Bell's Best Brown is sited as BJCP example of Am Brown, but I haven't been able to find anything Bells here.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

Another one for Bell's Best.... Great beer. Just tried Anchor's Bekle's Brown last night, single hop, citra.... Pretty neat take on a brown.

 

[dunnright00]

Yep, just looked it up, no Bells in CA.

Bummer, cause I'd love to try Two Hearted and Hopslam.

 

[Phunhog]

Not a commercial beer but world famous none the less....Janet's Brown Ale!! Made it for the first time and WOW!! It is one of the best beers I have made. It sounds exactly like what you are looking for..roasty and hoppy but perfectly balanced. The recipe is all over the place just do a search.

 

[PantherCity]

I LOVE Bear Republic's Pete Brown Tribute Ale.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

Not a commercial beer but world famous none the less....Janet's Brown Ale!! Made it for the first time and WOW!! It is one of the best beers I have made. It sounds exactly like what you are looking for..roasty and hoppy but perfectly balanced. The recipe is all over the place just do a search.

I've heard that's one of the best brown ales out there. I'm really gonna have to brew it!

 

[Beerbeque]

I'm drinking my own Reindeer slobber ale this holiday season. At 6.8% abv it's a real winter warmer, rich and chocolatey that I prefer at about 55-60 degrees cool. If you care to brew it, here's the recipe:
11# two row
1# C60
8 oz chocolate malt
.75 Cent 60
1oz US Northern brewer 10
1oz USNB 0
1 pkg US-05

 

[Jwood]

I second the bear republic Petes brown tribute. I'm in SD as well, but don't know if it was a one timer or not. May be able to still find you a bottle if you really are interested in trying it. Or if you are close enough (I'm in clairemont) I'll check out the store and tell you if it is still there. Where in San Diego are you?

 

[Waynep005]

Sierra Nevada Tumbler was pretty goodand widly distributed. Might be hard to find now since it was seasonal.

 

[hogwash]

Another vote for both the Bear Republic brown and Janet's Brown Ale. The Bear Republic is my favorite commercial brown.

I brewed the JBA back this spring and am down to about 8 bottles. Gotta do that one again!

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

I forgot this before, but Brooklyn makes one of my favorite browns out there. Like alotta their beers, it walks the line between English and American style, but it's very Americanized. Bold chocolate-y malt flavors and way hoppier than any self respecting English brewer would care to make a brown. Great beer!!

 

[dunnright00]

Not a commercial beer but world famous none the less....Janet's Brown Ale!! Made it for the first time and WOW!! It is one of the best beers I have made. It sounds exactly like what you are looking for..roasty and hoppy but perfectly balanced. The recipe is all over the place just do a search.

Oh Yeah! I forgot about Janet's I've got Brewing Classic Styles and the recipe is in there. Gonna have to try that.

I second the bear republic Petes brown tribute. I'm in SD as well, but don't know if it was a one timer or not. May be able to still find you a bottle if you really are interested in trying it. Or if you are close enough (I'm in clairemont) I'll check out the store and tell you if it is still there. Where in San Diego are you?

Never heard of the Bear Republic Brown, gonna look for that.

I'm in Lemon Grove, but I work in Miramar/Mira Mesa so I go right by Clairemont on the way home. Are you talking about Par liqueur?

 

[dunnright00]

I also want to reiterate how freaking good that New English brown was. I know they are not distributed very far, so SD peeps, Go Get Some!!

 

[eggraid101]

Ellie's Brown Ale is delicious. I believe it is brewed in CO. It has a brown lab on the label, if you see one: try it.

 

[stat]

Last year I did janet's brown ale. For some reason I can't get my water amounts/boil off/efficiency down. So I ended up with 6 gallons of slightly lower gravity janets brown that got the usual treatment. Then I also had about 2 gallons of the same beer without the dry hopping. I added 2 pounds of beet sugar 1lbs at a time over a week.
It took a year to mellow but it's so damn good, all the aroma hops are gone but the malt/sugar flavor is unbelievable. Pretty funky, not soured, just funky.

 

[BrewMU]

Ellie's Brown is from Avery Brewing in Boulder. It's okay - a little bland, but it does have a nice brown-sugary finish.

 

[pyth]

I got a brown ale for xmas this morning. Sort of. It's called a 'Big N' Easy Bottle Brew'. It's a 2L pop bottle, with wort in it, and a capsule of hops and a capsule of yeast I just drop into the bottle, and a preassure release cap to screw on.

Apparantly it's a drop the caps in and forget for 2 weeks, serve, sort of deal. I just 'pitched' the yeast...high hopes, low expectations, will report on it in 2 weeks.

 

[rednekhippiemotrcyclfreak]

Sweetwater and Terrapin both have good brown ales. Another good one is DuckRabbit Brown.

 

[duckmanco]

I liked Smuttynose's brown quite a bit when I tried it last, and yet another really enthusiastic vote for brewing Janet's Brown Ale... That beer flat out rocked... I brewed the extract version and was totally blown away by it, it's roasty and hoppy. I only subbed Colombus for the northern brewer, which was sanctioned by Tasty McDole, but there is something about the roast that plays with earthy piny citrus hops... My next iteration of it will be AG, but it was an awesome beer about 6 weeks in the keg.

 

[stamandster]

The only brown I remember having is the Breckle's from Anchor and it was pretty good...

 

[stubbornman]

No mention of DFH Indian Brown Ale? Great beer.

 

[rico567]

Brown isn't exactly my favorite style.....or perhaps I just haven't found the right one yet. Bell's is good, but my favorite -so far- is Abita Turbodog.

 

[EricCSU]

Janet's Brown is by far the best American Brown. I have made a session JBA (4.8%) that is also put of this world. I have also brewed Surly Bender which was a great beer.

If you love the style, you have to brew JBA. No substitutions, no changes. Brew the beer! Then you will truly understand

Eric

 

[pelipen]

Since you can get Lost Coast, try the Winterbraun. It is also nice.

 

[Homercidal]

I gotta agree. Bells Best Brown is VERY good, and Janet's Brown Ale is simply awesome! I also like Moose Drool and a few others. Amazing how some many different versions of the same style can taste so different.

 

[BrewMU]

Sierra Nevada Tumbler was pretty goodand widly distributed. Might be hard to find now since it was seasonal.

I've still got 5 of the six-pack I bought a month or two back. Have to get that over to Mikey's house soon.

 

[Diaperload]

I'll put in another vote for Lost Coast Downtown Brown. For a while, it was my favorite commercial beer. I made a clone of it as my second batch ever. It was also the first beer that I made a second batch of.

 

[PerpetualBuzz]

Not a lot of love for the Brooklyn Brown? I dig it.

 

[EllisTX]

Not a lot of love for the Brooklyn Brown? I dig it.

I like the Brooklyn Brown. It was one of the first non BMC beers that I really got into.

Check out The Full Pint for examples of each beer style.