Author: Phil Rusher

The increased demand for hop forward beer has naturally led to increased production on the commercial market, a great thing for the hopheads out there, but it’s resulted in a paucity of options for more malt-forward styles. Evidence of this trend’s bleed into homebrewing can be seen in the number of IPA recipe kits available and forum posts from brewers seeking techniques for maximizing hop character. This certainly hasn’t been a bad thing, but what about the thirsty beer enthusiasts longing for something other than a pale lupulin bomb, a beer that balances hop character with a pleasing toasty and slightly roasty malt flavor?

American Brown Ale is one such style, a seemingly logical option that bridges the gap between hoppy Pale Ale and rich roasty styles like Porter and Stout. Unlike its European counterparts, American Brown Ale is decidedly hoppy while possessing more characterful malt flavors. The BJCP provides the following description for this style:

A malty but hoppy beer frequently with chocolate and caramel flavors. The hop flavor and aroma complements and enhances the malt rather than clashing with it.

Brewing a delicious example of an American Brown Ale really isn’t much different than brewing any other style of beer, typically demanding 4ish hours to complete. But with the holidays fast approaching, I was running on short on time, so I thought I’d I’d try my hand at making one with a bunch of unconventional twists!

| BREWING THE BEER |

After adjusting my brewhouse efficiency down quite a bit, I designed a recipe that hit all the stats of American Brown Ale using various ingredients I had lying around.

Short & Shoddy American Brown Ale

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 5.5 gal 20 min 24.8 IBUs 20.9 SRM 1.061 1.016 6.0 % Actuals 1.061 1.01 6.8 % Fermentables Name Amount % MFB Pilsen 9 lbs 54.14 BEST Pilsen Malt (BESTMALZ) 6 lbs 36.09 Brown Malt (Crisp) 1 lbs 6.02 Caramel Malt - 120L (Briess) 6 oz 2.26 BEST Black Malt (BESTMALZ) 4 oz 1.5 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Warrior 15 g 20 min Boil Pellet 13 Northern Brewer 20 g 10 min Boil Pellet 8.2 Wakatu (Hallertau Aroma) 20 g 10 min Boil Pellet 7.4 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature Urkel - Harvested (L28) Imperial Yeast 73% 52°F - 58°F Notes Water Profile: Filtered Auburn, NY tap water with a little bit of this and a little bit of that Download Download this recipe's BeerXML file

My brew day began with the collection of water, which I ran through a simple carbon filter directly into my Grainfather.

I dosed the water with uncharacteristically inaccurate amounts of minerals and acid.

As the strike water heated, I weighed out and milled the grain.

Once strike temperature was reached, I mashed in and set the timer for a mere 20 minutes.

With the brief mash rest complete, I removed the grain basket and immediately set the controller to boil while the grains were quickly sparged. While waiting, I measured out the hops and added the FWH addition to the wort.

The wort was boiled vigorously for a whopping 20 minutes with hops added at the times stated in the recipe.

When the boil was finished, I chilled the wort with the included CFC and transferred it to a sanitized Brew Bucket.

My groundwater gets quite cool during the winter and brought the wort down to 55°F/13°C. I procured a jar of Imperial Yeast L28 Urkel I’d harvested from a starter 2 months prior, decanted the supernatant, and pitched it directly into the wort.

I left the beer to ferment in my basement where the ambient temperature fluctuated between 55°F/13°C and 63°F/17°C. After nearly 4 weeks, multiple hydrometer measurements showed the beer reached 1.010 FG.

It wasn’t until I began preparing to package the beer that I realized I was fresh out of CO2. In keeping with the shoddy nature of this batch, I left it alone a few more days then did the old crank ‘n’ shake method of carbonation… without chilling the beer first. Thanks to cool Upstate winters, the beer was hovering under 60˚F/16˚C, and given the time it sat in the fermentor, it was quite clear too.

After determining the beer was at an acceptable carbonation level, I placed it in my cool keezer and left it alone for a little over an hour, after which I reduced the gas to serving pressure and pulled off a couple samples to clear any sediment that fell out of solution in preparation for serving. Did somebody say short?

| RESULTS |

A total of 22 people of various levels of experience participated in this Short & Shoddy evaluation during Girls Pint Out hosted by Prison City Brewing in Auburn, NY. Participants were first asked to identify the style they believed the beer to be based on their perception.

Tasters were then instructed to rate how hoppy, malty, and dry they perceived the beer to be on a 0-5 scale where a rating of 0 indicated “not at all” and 5 indicated “extremely;” these ratings were then averaged.

Tasters were provided a list of common hop, malt, and yeast characteristics then instructed to select from each the one they perceived as being strongest in the beer.

Hop Characteristics

Malt Characteristics

Yeast Characteristics

Next, participants were asked to indicate whether or not they detected any off-flavors in the beer; those who did were provided a list of common off-flavors and instructed to select the one they perceived as being strongest. A total of 10 out of the 22 tasters reported perceiving various off-flavors in this beer.

Tasters were then asked to rate how much they enjoyed the beer on a 0-5 scale where 0 indicated they hated it and 5 indicated they loved it.

Finally, the beer style was revealed to participants and they were asked to rate how representative it was on a 0-5 scale where 0 meant “not at all” and 5 meant “exactly.”

My Impressions: Tasting this beer right after it was carbonated, it seemed to me like a mashup between a Brown IPA and an American Brown Ale, though it wasn’t particularly good at being either one of those things. I initially perceived a bit of “yeast bite” that may have come across as astringent to some, though this faded as the beer had time to condition in my keezer. The major aromas I perceived were moderate spice and citrus hop notes with low-moderate toasty malt character. These aromas carried over into the flavor, though I also picked up a low-moderate bready malt flavor with notes of coffee and very subtle dark chocolate. Overall, I thought this beer rather pleasing and enjoyed sharing it with family during holiday merrymaking.



| CONCLUSION |

When I set out to brew this American Brown Ale, I wanted to explore a style I’ve not made much of using a very non-traditional approach, and while the results suggest it may not have been the show-stopper I’d hoped for, I think a few minor adjustments are all that’s needed to bring it into its own. Namely, giving the beer a little more time to condition after packaging before serving. In my attempt to make this beer using the shoddiest methods possible, I thought it’d be interesting to experiment with a very quick carbonation technique then immediately serving it to tasters. It’s my opinion that this is what led to many perceiving off-flavors, namely astringency, which I found faded as the beer spent time in my cool keezer.

I was a bit surprised with the lack of tasters endorsing diacetyl, as I detected a distinct buttery character a couple days prior to packaging that I thought might stick around. Other than that, it would seem the short mash and boil lengths didn’t have much of a detrimental effect at all, as nobody noted anything that would indicate attenuation issues or the present of DMS. The 55% brewhouse efficiency, while certainly lower than normal, was expected and planned for.

In addition to the non-traditional process variables, I also used some atypical ingredients such as Pilsner malt, which I felt actually lended a nice bready character to the beer. However, this potentially came at the expense of a more malty backbone contributed by standard Pale malt. In addition to my hesitance to use a lager yeast for an American Brown Ale, I was doubly concerned since the yeast was harvested from a starter nearly 2 months prior and directly pitched. Adding that to the fact it was left to ferment at an uncontrolled temperature in my basement, I was convinced this beer would be completely unpalatable, which is certainly was not.

Overall, my experience with this beer being as generally positive as it has been, I feel even more confident that certain aspects of the brewing process can be abbreviated or approached in a non-conventional way without necessarily hindering the beer. Will I be making a habit of serving beer kegged just a couples before? Definitely not, but I sure do plan to brew Short & Shoddy style more often.

If you have thoughts about this Short & Shoddy brew, please feel free to share in the comments section below!

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