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Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Historical English Brown Ale - Tasting Notes

This is an English Brown Ale based on a historic recipe from the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins Blog (1928 Barclay Perkins Doctor Brown).  I brewed this back in September and have had it in the keg for almost a couple months now.

It was an interesting recipe in it's use of a lot flaked corn and a couple different sugar varieties (invert #3 and brown sugar) as well as brewers caramel for color.  It ended up more of a dark copper color than a Brown Ale

It leveraged the Whitbread yeast strain (I used Wyeast 1099) and I fermented it fairly warm.  It ended up with a pretty strong fruity ester profile for me.

Finally, I used some American hops in the beer.  They were fairly herbal and English-like in character so I thought they'd fit the beer nicely which I'd say they did.

Anyway, this beer is very nice to have on tap since it's not super high in alcohol (4.5%).  I'm drinking it pretty quickly and have been half-expecting the keg to kick with every pint I pour.  Happy it's lasted long enough for me to capture these notes:

Tasting Notes:

  • Aroma:
    • Very fruity yeast ester character - apple and maybe a bit of peach.  Pretty close to a Belgian beer in yeast aroma.  Get a bit of herbal hop character in there as well.  Maybe some bready malt cutting through as well.
  • Appearance:
    • Pours with a 3 finger head that dissipates over several minutes.  It is a dark copper color and pretty cloudy.
  • Flavor:
    • Fruity with caramel malt up front.  I get a bit of hop herbal hop flavor in the middle.  The finish some light bitterness along with some malty sweet flavor - pretty well balanced.  The estery flavors linger for quite some time in the finish.  Also get a bit of toasted bready malt in the flavor.
  • Mouthfeel:
    • Medium bodied and slightly sweet.  Smooth drinking
  • Overall:
    • This beer provides some bold flavors and is pretty complex.  I like the ester character but would have preferred it to be a little more restrained - I think its balance it a little further towards ester than I think an English Beer ought to. 

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