Recipe Critique

[Lost Brews]

I am working on designing a few beer for the up coming year so that I can make sure I get all the materials. I am also trying to brew close to style so I can enter the beers in completion. This is a Bourbon Mild Ale I am working on and this is my first round of rough calculations. I any one could give me some suggestions they would be much appreciated as I am still very new at trying to brew to style from my own resipies. I am also going to give you a little of my thought process with my desire profiles for the beer:
Style: 11A
Category: English Brown Ale
Subcategory: Mild
Desired Profile:
Aroma:
Moderate malt aroma, Caramelly, Lightly roasted, Little to no hop aroma.
Flavor:
malty beer, caramel, nutty, extra light roast, moderate bitterness
Mouthfeel:
Medium body, medium-low carbonation

Recipe:
4 lbs Maris Otter Pale info
3 lbs English Mild Ale info
.5 lbs American Caramel 30°L info
.1 lbs English Chocolate Malt info
.25 cup Dark Brown Sugar info
1 oz. Willamette (pellet, 5.00 %AA) 45min
1 ounce Bourbon Soaked Oak Chips
WYeast 1335 British Ale II

 

[TexLaw]

I don't know about the brown sugar, but the grains, hops, and yeast look like a nice mild recipe. The oak chips seem a bit out of place for a mild, also. If you want to leave them in and enter this beer in a competition, you'll need to enter it in the Smoke & Wood Aged category. I'm sure the wood flavor will be quite detectable and take it out of the English Brown Ale category.


TL

 

[Lost Brews]

i would agree but i am trying to design it somewhere between a mild and a nut brown ale i just chose the mild category when designing it should i make it an american brown?

 

[david_42]

Adding the bourbon oak chips will automatically throw you into the specialty ale category. Neither of those flavors are part of Mild or Brown styles. Brewing within style means exactly that.

It would need a lot more hops to make it as an American Brown.

Not saying it wouldn't be a good brew, just that it would probably get slammed in a BJCP competition.

 

[Lost Brews]

Adding the bourbon oak chips will automatically throw you into the specialty ale category. Neither of those flavors are part of Mild or Brown styles. Brewing within style means exactly that.

It would need a lot more hops to make it as an American Brown.

Not saying it wouldn't be a good brew, just that it would probably get slammed in a BJCP competition.

I would be puting it into the oak aged catagory or the specialty catagory but i have always thought to make a beer that would work in these catagories you would need a strong base style. That is why i chose mild as my base beer and have added the oak chips the idea being that i could split the batch and bottle 1/2 as a Mild Ale and the other as a specialty beer or wood aged beer with bourbon Chips.

 

[Bob]

Sounds like it'll taste quite nice! The gravity is a bit too high - strictly speaking, you shouldn't exceed 1.038. Going higher puts you into Southern English Brown Ale, IMO (never mind the oak).

Sugar is perfectly acceptable in mild ale, according to Designing Great Beers. According to Daniels, 70 to 75 percent of commercial examples use some kind of non-malt sugar; 52-54 percent of those that do use some sort of sugar (the others use flaked maize, flaked barley or wheat). I use 4 ounces of brown sugar in my mild recipe.

But hey, style be damned if you're not looking to enter it into a competition. The proof is in the drinking - if you like it, it's Good, and no amount of style-category hair-splitting is going to matter.

Cheers,

Bob

 

[TexLaw]

I would be puting it into the oak aged catagory or the specialty catagory

It should go in the Wood Aged category, not Specialty. Specialty is for beers that have no other category. I'd hate to see you pay your entry fee, just to get a bunch of "not to style" comments.


TL