Belgian-style ‘Brown’ Ale - Homebrew Recipe and Results
The best thing about homebrewing is that you get to do whatever the heck you want. Sometimes you see, try, or imagine something that gets you excited to pile the malt and hops into a bottle. And sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. But that’s the game, and it’s why I love it.
Our inspiration for our Belgian Brown Ale came from sampling beers at our local Belgian-style brewery and wanting to mesh those clean, spicy, and fruity flavors with the dark, flavorful malts found in Brown Ales, like a hot winter toddy.
Brown Ales are some of our favorite winter beers. And we appreciate the tradition of a great Belgian blonde, tripel, or IPA. So, let’s get to brewing by mashing up our dark grains.
Malt: (60 minute mash for 1 gallon of beer)
Belgian Pilsner - 1.8 lbs. (28.8oz)
Munich Malt - 3.2 oz.
Special B - 1.6 oz.
Caramel 40L - 1.6 oz.
Carapils - 1.6 oz.
Chocolate - 0.8 oz.
We mashed our malt in 3 ½ quarts at 150℉ for one hour, sparged with 1 gallon at 170℉, and proceeded with our boil.
Boil Hop additions: (60 minutes)
Magnum - 0.1 oz. at 60 minutes (start of boil)
Willamette - 0.2 oz. at 15 minutes remaining
Clarifier (Irish Moss) - ⅕ tsp at 15 minutes remaining.
Willamette - 0.2 oz. at Flameout
We cooled this baby down to 70℉ and pitched 4 grams of Monk yeast from Cellar Science preactivated in 40 ml of 95℉ water for 20 minutes.
We let the yeast do its thing at 68℉ for two weeks, then added our priming sugar (0.81 oz. Corn sugar boiled in ½ cup water). Two more weeks and we popped that top and let it rip.
Here are our first impressions.
First Impressions:
On the Eyes--It pours a light brown and not quite as dark as many brown ales. A light-beige head forms and diminishes quickly.
On the Nose--Light chocolate and caramel notes with just a touch of floral from the Willamette hops. Quite subdued, but inviting. Mild spice characteristics also tickle the nose from the Belgian yeast.
On the Palate--The chocolate and caramel flavors remain subtle and the beer finishes with some even milder raisin-like notes from the Special B. It has a medium body and a pretty satisfying mouthfeel (thank you Carapils). The finish is dry from the use of Pilsner and Munich malt. Floral notes from the Willamette hops come forward and combine well with the very gentle clove flavors developed by the Belgian yeast.
Verdict:
This Belgian Brown Ale is quite clean and balanced, two traits we often search for in our beers, but under the name of a Brown Ale it falls short. We like our Brown Ales with a lot of mouth-coating and -pleasing happiness, but this beer falls short. We relied too heavily on the Pilsner and Munich malt and not enough on the dark malts. Essentially, what we made is a pretty good Belgian Amber Ale, but since we weren’t going for that we have to be honest.
If I were to make this again, I would instantly double the dark specialty malts. This would add more color, flavor, and depth to the beer. With a Belgian-style beer, we must take into account the yeast. We fermented at a pretty moderate 68℉, but if we had increased our fermentation temp to around 72-74℉ the beer would have exhibited more of those esters (fruity-flavors) and phenols (clove-like) which, we believe, would have complemented the chocolate, Special B, and Willamette hops. Better luck next time… but we won’t fail again!
Keep Brewing!
Mr. Brew