Original Gravity
Tangent No. 2
American Amber and Brown Ales
Its probably safe to say that, as beer enthusiasts and homebrewers, we're pretty familiar with American Pale Ales. Sierra Nevada, which nearly defines the style, may well have been what got you into beer tasting and eventually brewing your own. Most of us are rather familiar with our local American Pale Ale, Schlafly's Expedition Reserve. I think it is time to meet some of the extened family, American Amber and American Brown Ales.
North Coast Red Seal Ale is an American Amber Ale and now fairly easy to find in our fair city and is an excellent example of the style. Mendocino Red Tail Ale and St. Rogue Red Ale can be had around here, as well, but the one we're most likely familiar with is Bell's Amber Ale.
The whole idea behind the American Amber Ale is to create a richer American Pale Ale. Whereas the focus of an American Pale Ale is definitely hop-centric, generally with a soft malt backing, the Amber-ized version is more about balance. That's not to say that the hops have, necessarily been scaled back, although this is an option, but many brewers simply use a higher proportion of Crystal/Cara malts. Additional character malts may be used to add complexity, mild malt, biscuit malt, Munich malt and others can be used in smaller quantities.
When brewing an American Amber Ale, one generally takes a simple approach. Mashing the mid to high 150s with a base of American Two Row malt and your chosen specialty grains. American hops, while preferable are not mandatory. However some combination of Pacific Northwest hops with imported German, like Tettenang, English, like Goldings can add some depth to the usually citrusy American varieties.
Here are the numbers according to our friends at the BJCP:
OG FG IBUs SRM ABV
1.045 - 1.060 1.010 - 1.015 25 - 40+ 10 - 17 4.5 - 6%
And here's an example:
Old Grandma's Amber Ale
by Joe Formanek
Won BOS at 2005 Drunk Monk Challenge (~550 total entries)
A very similar recipe has taken gold at the Nats in 2002 and 2004
OG: 1.068
FG: 1.016
IBU: 31
SRM: 16
ABV: 6.9%
For 5 gallon batch
Grain:
8# Muntonís Pale 2 row
1# Weyermannís Wheat
3/4# DMC Caramunich
3/4# DWC Carapils
1/2# Cargill Special Pale 2 row
1/2# DMC Caravienne
1/2# DWC Biscuit
1/2# DWC Aromatic
1/8# DWC Special B
Hops:
All whole
1/2 oz Centennial (10.0% aa) - 60 min boil
1/2 oz Centennial (10.0% aa) - 10 min finish
1 oz Willamette (5.0% aa) - 10 min finish
1 oz American-style Homegrown (?% aa) - 10 min finish
1 oz Centennial (10.0% aa) - Dry hop in secondary
1 oz Willamette (5.0% aa) - Dry hop in secondary
Yeast:
White Labs WLP002 British Ale
Water:
Filtered Tap water + 1 tsp gypsum per 5 gal
Finings:
1 tsp Irish Moss (rehydrated) last 15 min of boil
Standard infusion mash: 4 gal
173F water - add grain
157F - 60 min til converted
170F - 10 min mash out
Sparged with 3 gal 170F water
Boil:
75 min with hops and Irish Moss additions.
While I would have mashed a grist like that a few degrees lower, I think we can safely say Joe Formanek has a clue on this sort of thing.
Ok, extract brewers, are you still paying attention, we've got a treat in store for you, too:
Westside Amber
2004 First Place Michigan State Fair
Brewer: Jeff Carlson
MSF Category: 8625
Style: 6b, American Amber Ale
Batch Size: 6 gallons
Malt: 6 lbs Briess Gold DME
½ lb. Cara Pils
½ lb. Caravienne
¾ lb Crystal 80L
1 oz. Chocolate Malt
Steep grains at 155 F for 30 minutes
Hops: 1 oz. Centennial (10% AA) 60 minutes
1 oz. Cascade (5.4% AA) 15 min
1 oz. Cascade (5.4% AA) 5 min
½ oz. Cascade (5.4% AA) Dry Hop
Boil Time: 75 minutes
Yeast: White Labs California Ale Yeast – WLP001 (1 quart starter)
Carbonation: 5 oz. priming sugar @ bottling
O.G.: 1.052
F.G.: 1.012
Primary: Glass Carboy – 7 days @ 66 F
Secondary: Glass Carboy – 10 days @ 66 F
While I haven't had either of these recipes, they certainly have the credentials.
American Amber Ales are a product of the Pacific Northwest's hop addiction and a result of pairing big hop flavors with big malt flavors in less alcohol rich environment than American Barleywines.
American Brown Ales share common ancestry, being the spawn of homebrewers' experimentation. Take the citrusy American hop flavor this family of ales shares and stack with it the caramelly, toffee and/or toasty flavors of American Amber Ales and heap on a bit more caramel along with some roasted grains. I like CaraFa malts, Chocolate Wheat and the like. Other than the darker grains and slightly lower IBUs, the brewing is nearly the same.
Yeast choice for both styles is a bit open. American yeasts, such as the ubiquitious '1056' or the less common WY 1272 will work excellently and English strains will do well, too. Even Scottish ale yeast can be used for these brews. I've tasted some excellent brown ales brewed with German Ale yeast, as well. For both the Scottish and German yeasts, just be sure to keep the temperatures cool, near 55 degrees is good range, I've found.
Let's look at the numbers, again:
While I haven't brewed a 'traditional' American Brown Ale, I do have a couple recipes that I have been very pleased with, to share:
Imperial Oatmeal American Brown Ale
2nd Place Urban Knaves of Grain Drunk Monk, Cat 23, 2006
3rd Place AHA Nationals Midwest Regional
5 Gallon batch
OG 1.082, 67 IBUs, 8.0%+
14 lbs CA 2-row
2.67 lbs Rolled, toasted oats (Minute Quaker Oats, oven toasted at 400dF until they smelled like cookies)
.5 lbs American Wheat Malt
.5 lbs US CaraPils
.33 lbs Crystal 60L
.33 lbs Crystal 80L
.33 lbs Special B 100L
.33 lbs British Chocolate Malt
1 oz Northern Brewer 7.0%AA 60 min
1 oz Northern Brewer 7.0%AA 30 min
.5 oz Northern Brewer 7.0%AA 10 min
.5 oz Columbus 17.0%AA 10 min
.5 oz Warrior 14.5%AA 10 min
1 oz Warrior 14.5%AA 5 min
1 oz Columbus 17.0%AA 5 min
1 oz Columbus 17.0%AA 0 min
1 oz Warrior 14.5%AA 0 min
WY 1056, Mash 153dF for 60 min
This recipe could pretty easily be modified for a nice, non-Imperial version, but this was so good, I see no reason to change it. However, if you do downsize this beast, I would say to scale back the IBUs to 40-ish, drop the last four hop measures by .25 or .33ozs and mash it around 156 degrees. The specialty malts can stay about the same, the oats can be dropped off a bit and I would think to scale back the base malt to hit about 1.055 OG on your system. If one decided that the grist won't provide enough malt complexity, some of the base could be subbed out for Munich malts.
As is, however, I can best describe it as a cross between Stone's Arrogant Bastard Ale and a fresh Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter. It is citrusy, resinous, slightly sweet, toasty and mocha-esque.
Enough chat, here's another variation on our theme:
2oz Northern Brewer 60 min 6.9%AA
3oz Northern Brewer 20 min
5oz Northern Brewer flameout
WY Pacman starter
1.057 OG, 1.010 FG 43 IBUs
It came out a bit dark and a bit hoppy, but that's the way I planned it. This beer is aging quite well, too. With nearly four months on it, its as good as it did two and a half months ago.
The woody Northern Brewers worked great together with the spicy rye and soft chocolately character from the huskless chocolate rye malt. The PacMan yeast fermented very clean and very fast and attenuated even further than I expected, but the beer still came out very nice.
