Most of the beer lovers out there have a great appreciation for smooth roasted chocolate flavors of a brown ale and the citric American hop flavors of an American Pale ale. Some brilliant Texan home-brewers decided to mix the two flavors together and thus the American Brown Ale was born. Brewers of the ABA beware! This style of ale is a huge crowd pleaser, so plan to have it consumed quickly after it is ready to drink. I brew about 3 batches of this style every year in order to keep up with the demand of my friends and brothers in law. Making this beer has a few tricks to it that I’ve learned over the years, and being that it is the one style that I have brewed many times over, I finally feel confident writing an article about a beer style.

Ingredients:

For the extract brewers out there, this style is perfect for you. Dry malt extract works well with the American brown ale, but I would recommend a pale extract with specialty grains rather than using dark extract. For the all grain brewer, use West Can malt for the base. It has awesome diastatic strength and therefore can handle a simple single infusion mash with no problems. There is no need to use special base malts like Golden Promise, because the subtle flavors of these malts would be lost in the hops and roast. Specialty malts include crystal and chocolate – and feel free to experiment. I use about 10 pounds (4.53 kg) of West Can (extract brewers can substitute about 6 pounds or 2.72 kg of DME), one pound (453g) of Crystal, and 6 ounces (170 g)of Chocolate malt.

For hops, I recommend any American hop variety such as Columbus, Cascade, Centennial, or Amarillo. For the big alpha hops, add them early in the boil, say for 60 min and put the low alpha guys in later to get the huge hop flavor and aroma.

Any European or American ale yeast will probably do the trick, but I’ve had the best results using Wyeast London Ale and/or British Ale.

The Brewing Process:

The Mash:

As I’ve already stated, this is an easy brew day from a mashing perspective. A single infusion at about 67 °C (153F) will do nicely for body and starch conversion. If you desire more body in your brown ale, mash a little warmer. Lauter for 20 minutes at a rate of 2 cups (0.5 L) per minute and sparge at 75 °C – 80 °C but a tad slower – at 1.5 cups (0.35 L) per minute for about an hour or so.

Hops:

You need a well balanced hop bitterness against the malt along with a good blast of hop flavor and aroma. Plan to get between 50 – 60 IBU if you have an original gravity of 1.060. For hop flavor and aroma, GO BIG. The lower the alpha acid in the hop the better, because more hops can be used and the flavor/aroma will be bigger. Without a doubt, this style requires you to dry hop or use a hop jack. A hop jack is for those who have an automated system with a pump and a counter flow wort chiller. It is an air tight vessel that holds hops as boiling wort passes through on its way to the CFWC. For those who are like me and have a simple brew set up, dry hopping works really well. Simply add hops to the secondary fermenter after racking. Let the hops soak in the beer for a week or two then siphon the beer into bottles. How much hop do you add? That depends on whether you have the hops in a hop bag or if they are loose. I like to go loose and add about 0.13oz (45g) of hops. The beer will taste grassy at first, but wait a few weeks and the vegetal flavors mellow right out.

Fermentation:

Use a healthy, active starter and ferment at 18 °C for as long as it takes.

When you open the first bottle and pour it, ask yourself – is the hop aroma big? If not, then next time add more flavor/aroma and dry hops. All of the flavors should balance nicely with the roasted flavors.

Good luck!