Autumn Brown Ale Tasting

With Fall officially coming to an end, figured it was about time to post some tasting notes on my Autumn-inspired Brown Ale.  It's been a busy season, with little time to brew or blog, but I'll make up for some of that in the coming months.

Abscission Ale

Appearance - Beautiful deep brown, with creamy tan head that slowly dissipates

Aroma - Malt dominates, with a nutty and toasty complexity.  Just a hint of smoke.  The hops bring an earthiness with a touch of spice that backs up the overall rich aroma.

Flavor - Follows the aroma.  Rich, earthy, and nutty/toasty.  Strong malt backbone, with a low level of sweetness, supported by the spice of the Challenger and EKG hops.  Just enough bitterness to carry the malt.  Exceptionally quaffable.

Mouthfeel - Moderate body with moderate-low carbonation (as intended).  Would be good with a bit more body, but, as it is, it works well.  At only 4.2% ABV, I was worried about it being too thin, but I think the the specialty malts give it just enough substance.  Next year, I may add some flaked grain and/or increase the crystal malt slightly just to up the body a bit more.  I'll use Maris Otter as my base malt as well (my LHBS was out when I picked up the ingredients this time around)

Overall - A great Fall season beer - dark and rich enough without being too heavy.  This beer did not last long, though I did manage to hold onto a few bottles to share with family at Thanksgiving - this beer paired excellently with the (beer-brined) turkey.  

Autumn Brown Ale

This is, by far, my favorite time of year.  Crisp, sunny days and cool breezy nights.  The summer vegetable garden is winding down and the leaves are starting to turn colors.  Temperatures are perfect for brewing too.

It just feels right to brew something darker and maltier as the days start to grow shorter.  One of my favorite Autumn commercial beers is Sierra Nevada's Tumbler , so I thought I'd try my hand at making something similar.  This is not an attempt at a clone exactly - though I did use info on Sierra Nevada's website to help guide my recipe.  I was looking for something rich and malty, something where the hops take a supporting role to the roasted malts.  I actually had hoped to brew this up at the beginning of the month so that it would be just about ready for the start of the fall season, but, as usual, time got away from me.  Still, it will be a good beer to have as the weather continues to cool down.

Abscission Ale
brewed on 9/19/13

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.75 gal
Estimated Color: 22.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 28.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.018
ABV: 4.2%

Grist
6 lbs Pale Malt, UK - 80.3 %
12.0 oz Brown Malt - 10.0 %
6.0 oz Crystal Malt (45L) - 5.0 %
4.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450L) - 3.3 %
1.5 oz Smoked Malt - 1.3 %

Hops
14 g Challenger [5.70 %] - 60.0 min
14 g Challenger [5.70 %] - 15.0 min
14 g EKG [5.70 %] - 15.0 min

Yeast
California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)

Mash Schedule
Single infusion, 153ºF, batch sparge

Cranberry Brown Ale - Tasting

A mild, "makeshift" brown ale using Brett Trois and local cranberries. I brewed this back in the Fall for Thanksgiving. There's a reason I have held off reviewing it...

Henry Hall Ale

Appearance - Deep brown with some ruby highlights. Clear. Thin, spritzy head that quickly dissipates - I wonder why there's so little foam?

Aroma - Very subdued. What aroma is there is all malt with a little "dark" fruitiness.

Flavor - Also rather subdued. Little hop bitterness, but an astringency that I attribute to the cranberries. Slightly fruity. Dry - probably a combination of the Brett used for fermentation and the cranberries. Honestly, kind of bland. Neither crisp and refreshing nor complexly flavorful. When this was younger I remember it being more fruity and flavorful. Has not aged well.

Mouthfeel - Thin. Low carbonation. Drying. Again, I remember this being not quite as thin or dry when it was younger

Overall - Not a particularly good beer. I had hoped that the cranberries and the crystal malts would play well together, and that the Brett Trois would add some nice fruit notes. I had some hope when it was young. But instead, I think the Brett chewed through the crystal malts leaving behind a thin, dry beer, and the tannins from the cranberries left too much of an astringent bite. All in all, another disappointing result using cranberries. I should probably close the book on using them...except I'm thinking I just may need to try them in a simpler English-style brown ale using an English yeast that will leave behind some residual sweetness to help balance the flavor. A project for the Fall.

Cranberries and Brett...again...but different

I should probably ditch this fascination I have with trying to use cranberries in a beer, but there's something about using a locally-grown, native fruit that I just can't let it go.  My first attempt at using cranberries was HIGHLY experimental and had disappointing results (though I am geared up for another tasting to see if time has helped).  Cranberries contain a lot of tannins and they seemed to add a fair amount of astringent bite to the last beer, which was too much for such a dry beer to handle.  But, I've been thinking that a richer, maltier, "sweeter" beer would work well with cranberries.  Especially if I don't overdo the cranberry addition.  So, I brewed up an English-style brown ale sort of beer that will hopefully hold up to the cranberries.

As you can see from the grist bill below, this is decidedly not a standard brown ale recipe and is not the way I would build a brown ale if I were starting from scratch.  But I wasn't starting from scratch.  You see, I had grain already milled for another version of my ongoing attempt to perfect a hoppy red ale recipe I've been playing with the past couple of years.  However, I never got around to brewing it, and I wanted to brew up this new beer so that it would be ready in time for Thanksgiving, and I didn't feel like wasting all this grain.  So, I decided I could start with the grain I had, add some more crystal malt and some chocolate malt and...voila...turn it into a "brown" ale.  Some of the grain weights are a little weird too since I had too much grain in the original red ale recipe for the lower gravity I was looking for with this beer, so I pulled out a couple of pounds of grain and just extrapolated the remaining grain weights based on percentages.

As for the yeast...I decided to go with the Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois strain I harvested from my multi-grain farmhouse style ale I brewed over the summer.  I absolutely loved the fruity character I got from that strain and I am thinking that it will complement both the malt and the cranberries.

Speaking of the cranberries....I am planning on picking up some freshly harvested fruit from one of the original cultivated cranberry bogs on Cape Cod.  This bog is now currently owned by "Annie's Crannies", but was originally farmed by Captain Henry Hall, the man credited with being the first to commercially cultivate cranberries.  I'll add the fruit to secondary once the fermentation is fully complete.  I'm not sure yet how much I will use, but am thinking on the order of 0.25 pounds per gallon.  I figure it is better to be conservative.  I may also bottle some of the base beer without the cranberries just in case the cranberry version turns out to be not so great.

So much for trying a simpler approach this time around....

[UPDATE 10/21/12 - I decided to rack the entire batch onto 1 pound of cranberries.  The cranberries were picked up fresh from Annie's Crannies, as mentioned above. I vacuum-sealed them, and then froze them, thawed them, then froze them again, before thawing them a second time before racking the beer.  I'll let the beer sit on the cranberries for 10 days or so.  Not sure if this is enough time, but I want to get it in the bottle in time to be ready for Thanksgiving.]

Henry Hall Ale
brewed on 9/26/12

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.75 gal
Estimated Color: 22.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
OG: 1.046 SG
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.5%

Grist
3 lbs 10.0 oz Pale Malt - 58.9%
12.0 oz Pilsner Malt - 12.2%
6.0 oz Crystal 120 - 6.1%
6.0 oz Crystal 60 - 6.1%
6.0 oz Munich I - 6.1%
6.0 oz White Wheat Malt - 6.1%
3.0 oz Chocolate Malt - 3.0%
0.7 oz Roasted Barley - 0.7%
0.7 oz Acidulated - 0.7% (for mash pH)

Hops
9 g EKG [4.50 %] - 60 min
7 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 30 min

Misc
1 lb of fresh cranberries added to secondary

Yeast
Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois (WLP644)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 150ºF, batch sparge