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.
