Northern English Nut Brown Ale

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Tamati

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Jun 16, 2014
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Location
Sheffield
As I live in the north of England, I thought it would be appropriate to try and brew a Northern English Nut Brown Ale. I would like to achieve a dark brown ale with the nice nutty taste present in beers such as; Samuel Smiths Nut Brown Ale. Althought with my own choice of hops and an increased mouth-feel. Something that I think SS Nut Brown lacks.

I have read that using Victory Malt will impart the nutty flavour I am after. However, I was wondering if I could use either Brown Malt or Amber Malt (or both) as a substitute for Victory? The reason being is I have a about 1kg of each already in my grain store.

I also have a few light, medium and dark crystal malts to choose from.


Any advice on this subject would be welcome, such as yeast style and which English hops to choose.


Many Thanks for your help
 
Brown malt yes, Amber no.

Brown malt is used is basically all English Brown Ales (at least Northern English Brown ales) as well as most English stouts/porters.

What do you have access to for hops? I personally really like Challenger and Fuggle, with Fuggle being extremely distinctive.
 
Thanks for your reply.

In regards to English hops I currently have:

East Kent Goldings
Challenger
Brambling Cross
Progress
and probably <1oz Fuggle

Other hops include:

Sterling
Triskel
Cascade
Chinook
Mosaic
Pacific Gem
Angus
Williamette
Bobek


How much of the brown malt would I use. I probably have only 1kg
 
How large of a batch are you making?

The couple of brown ales I've made I've used between 1 and 2.5lbs (about .4-1.15kg) for ~4 gallon (~14 liter) batches and they've all worked well.

The one that I did a LOT of brown malt in (~1.15kg and it was more like a 3.5 gallon batch) ended up being kind of harsh, but it might have also been that it was an India Brown Ale and it went up on around 60IBU of willamette and Fuggle hops (I LOVE fuggle, but the ~2oz I used in the batch along with the 2oz of willamette I think was a little much. I think fuggle is more a "mild hopping" hop for me). It settled down after about 5-6 months, but it was harsh (I wouldn't describe it as overly bitter, just harsh) for the first few months.

I would say, maybe not more than 15% of the grain bill should be brown malt? Something in that range for a max would be my two pence.
 
How large of a batch are you making?

I usually make a 19l batch as that's about the maximum I can boil in my copper.
But I could do a smaller batch to use up all of the Brown Malt.

I have just weighed it. I have 650g of Brown Malt.
 
I'd probably go for a 12-15L batch then, with the smaller size being stronger on the brown malt taste and the 15L being somewhat weaker.

I've only made Nut Brown ales 3 times now (with 1 being that IBA) and brown malt in a couple of other recipes, but with the little experimentation I've done, it seems like maybe 5-8% will give you a bit of nuttiness, 10% is rather noticable and up around 15% starts getting kind of harsh. So maybe base the recipe around that for the volume you'd want?

Anyone who has more brown malt/brown ale experience could/should deffinitely chime in now though.
 
There is a good discussion of Northern Brown Ales here.

My recipe for NBA calls for a base of pale malt, a small amount of Crystal 80, and smaller amounts of Victory and Chocolate. The combination of Crystal, Victory, and Chocolate give the toasty and nutty notes for which the style is famous.
 
As an experiment I have made for the following recipe, I will brew it tomorrow. Unless anyone replies saying it will turn out disgusting.

I am trying to use up some old-ish malt hence why the base malt is mixed.

19l batch.

1kg Maris Otter
2.2kg Pale Malt (Crisp)
600g Brown Malt
200g Amber Malt (Crisp)
200g Dark Crystal (240 EBC) - This is to balance the dryness of the Brown and Amber
80g Chocolate (EBC 1000)

According to Beer Smith this should turn out a nice brown colour. Is the ratio of base:speciality ok?

I will be adding EKG and Fuggle for the hop additions.
 
I am starting to really keep good track of my brewing and I keep thinking I should do it all metric. The only problem would be all of the mental conversion from all of the non-metric brewing stuff I read or watch.
 
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