Brown ale is a
style of beer with a dark amber or brown colour. The term was first used by London brewers in the late 17th century to describe a lightly hopped ale brewed from 100%
brown malt. Brown ale is a type of
Ale.
History
In the 18th century, British brown ales were brewed to a variety of strengths, with
original gravities (OG) ranging from around 1.060 to 1.090. Around 1800, brewers stopped producing these types of beers as they moved away from using brown malt as a base. Pale malt, being cheaper because of its higher yield, was used as a base for most beers, including
porter and
stout
Stout is a type of dark beer that is generally warm fermented, such as dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout and imperial stout. Stout is a type of ale.
The first known use of the word "stout" for beer is in a document dated 1677 in the E ...
.
The term "brown ale" was revived at the end of the 19th century when London brewer Mann introduced a beer with that name. However, the style only became widely brewed in the 1920s. The brown ales of this period were considerably stronger than most modern English versions. In 1926, Manns Brown Ale had an original gravity of 1.043 and an ABV of around 4%. Whitbread Double Brown was even stronger, an OG of 1.054 and more than 5% ABV.
[Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives.] The introduction of these beers coincided with a big increase in demand for bottled beer in the UK. In the 1930s some breweries, such as Whitbread, introduced a second weaker and cheaper brown ale that was sometimes just a sweetened version of dark Mild. These beers had an original gravity of around 1.037.
After World War II, most breweries stopped producing these stronger brown ales, with the exception of some breweries in the northeast of England. The majority had an OG in the range 1.030–1.035, or around 3% ABV, much like Manns Brown Ale today.
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
n brown ales trace their heritage to American
home brewing adaptations of certain northern
English beers, and the English influence on American Colonial Ales.
Description
English brown ales range from beers such as Manns Original Brown Ale,
Manns Brown Ale – a bottle with real character
which is quite sweet and low in alcohol, to northeastern brown ale such as Newcastle Brown Ale, Double Maxim and Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale. North American examples include Sam Adams Brown Ale and Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
Brown Ale.
They range from deep amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia ...
to brown in colour. Caramel and chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either by itself or to flavoring, flavor other foods.
Cocoa beans are the processed seeds of the cacao tree (''Theobroma cacao''); unprocesse ...
flavours are evident. Brown ales from northeastern England tend to be strong and malty, often nutty, while those from southern England are usually darker, sweeter and lower in alcohol. North American brown ales are usually drier than their English counterparts, with a slight citrus
''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the family Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes.
''Citrus'' is nativ ...
accent and an aroma, bitterness, and medium body due to American hop varieties. Fruitiness from ester
In chemistry, an ester is a compound derived from an acid (either organic or inorganic) in which the hydrogen atom (H) of at least one acidic hydroxyl group () of that acid is replaced by an organyl group (R). These compounds contain a distin ...
s are subdued. When chilled to cold temperatures, some haziness may be noticed.
See also
* Amber ale
* Mild ale
* Irish red ale
*Flanders red ale
Flanders red ale or Flemish red-brown, is a style of sour ale brewed in West Flanders, Belgium.
Flanders red ale is fermented with organisms other than ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'', especially '' Lactobacillus'', which produces a sour charact ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown Ale
Beer styles