Nut Brown Ale mooting

A beer style I haven't drunk in quite a long time is the kind of sweet brown ale that was available in the 60s/70s but has more or less disappeared now. I'd like to have a go at brewing some because I used to like it. Whitbread Forest Brown or Ind Coope Nut Brown would be the kind of thing I'm aiming for.

I've done a little research and I'm aiming for a fairly low gravity, low hops, caramel chocolate taste and a chestnut brown colour. I don't want too much roast flavour to come through. I'm going to sweeten it with lactose.

Anyone have any experience of this beer style? Do you think the following would work ok?
The finished amount would be 15 litres, SG around 1.035 I hope.
Mild malt: 2 Kg
Crystal malt (100- Warminster): 500g
Chocolate malt: 250g
Black malt: 150g
Lactose: 100g

Fuggles hops: 25g
Gervin GV12 yeast.

You're heading into porter territory and maybe beyond there I think. From what I've found on the interweb Forest Brown was mild malt, crystal and two types of sugars - in the 50s, anyway. It was a slightly stronger version of Whitbread mild. It's likely the sugars provided colour. The ingredients and %s are here:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/whitbreads-ales-in-1955.html

The main sugar was called Garton no.3, and was an invert sugar, and I found this:

According to Malting & Brewing Science by Hough, Briggs & Stevens (p296), "Four grades of invert sugars are available, differing principally in their colour. Nos 1 and 2 are used for pale ales, 2 and 3 for mild ales and No 4, usually known as black invert, for stouts.

Number Colour (EBC)
1...................30
2...................70
3..................130
Black 4 ...........500

I would use 7% crystal, 10-13% sugar, enough black or choc malt to provide the colour required (not much), and the rest mild malt. I created the no.3 invert in Brewmate and put in 12% of that, 7% crystal and 81% mild, and got a colour of 23EBC. To get around 23EBC with mild malt, dark brown sugar, crystal and black...

Batch Size (L): 15.0
Original Gravity (OG): 1.035
Final Gravity (FG): 1.007
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 3.61 %
Colour (SRM): 12.2 (EBC): 24.0
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 75

Grain Bill
----------------
1.900 kg Mild Ale Malt (83.33%)
0.200 kg Brown Sugar, Dark (8.77%)
0.160 kg Crystal 60 (7.02%)
0.020 kg Black Malt (0.88%)

Fabulous answer. Thank you very much clibit.

No worries. You could stick to your idea, but it has a lot of roast. The 60s/70s brown ales you refer to were really milds I think. So another option would be to source a good mild recipe. This one worked really well for me:

Pale Malt: 84%
Torrified Wheat: 4%
Crystal Malt: 3%
Chocolate Malt: 3%
Brown Sugar: 6%

I'm not really wedded to the colour but I'd say the colour I'm expecting is around 20 SRM and my chocolate malt is relatively light-coloured.

I think you're right though & the black malt is overkill. I'm pretty sure a lot of these beers had caramel as colouring (the head was often brown coloured) but I'm not going down that road.

My caramel malt is billed as 100. I'll use the recipe you suggested but I'll cut the black malt and replace with a little more chocolate and replace the brown sugar with enough mild malt to keep the strength. Something like, but probably not exactly:

2.5 Kg Mild malt
160g Caramel malt
80g Chocolate malt
50g lactose

I think that'll be not too bad as a first attempt at what I'm looking for.

edit:
I'll use that mild recipe for sure once the bitter I'm currently brewing is drank and my barrel is free.

clibit said:

No worries. You could stick to your idea, but it has a lot of roast. The 60s/70s brown ales you refer to were really milds I think. So another option would be to source a good mild recipe. This one worked really well for me:

Pale Malt: 84%
Torrified Wheat: 4%
Crystal Malt: 3%
Chocolate Malt: 3%
Brown Sugar: 6%

Click to expand...

Just brewed 5litres of this today apart from the pale ale malt which i switched to mild ale malt as i misread the recipe.
Rob am gonna try yours next as soon as i get some lactose. Thanks for the recipes.:

BeerCat said:

Just brewed 5litres of this today apart from the pale ale malt which i switched to mild ale malt as i misread the recipe.
Rob am gonna try yours next as soon as i get some lactose. Thanks for the recipes.:

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I haven't brewed anything in 15 years or more & I'm totally out of touch with modern ingredients - especially hops. Please understand my recipes are speculative, I'm just running them past people. However, if you brew one, pease let me know how it went and what you would change.

Edit: Especially be careful about the Lactose. I haven't properly looked into that & too much would be disgusting.

I was assuming Beercat brewed this:

Pale Malt: 84%
Torrified Wheat: 4%
Crystal Malt: 3%
Chocolate Malt: 3%
Brown Sugar: 6%

clibit said:

I was assuming Beercat brewed this:

Pale Malt: 84%
Torrified Wheat: 4%
Crystal Malt: 3%
Chocolate Malt: 3%
Brown Sugar: 6%

Click to expand...

He did, which is sensible. He said he's going to brew mine when he gets some Lactose, which may not be.

Lol, I am a complete novice but its really nice to mess about and only making 5l batches mostly so nothing to lose. I realised when i started brewing that i didn't really know anything about beer apart from how to drink it. Maybe i will lay of the lactose as per your advice then but definitely let you know how i get on. :)

BeerCat said:

Lol, I am a complete novice but its really nice to mess about and only making 5l batches mostly so nothing to lose. I realised when i started brewing that i didn't really know anything about beer apart from how to drink it. Maybe i will lay of the lactose as per your advice then but definitely let you know how i get on. :)

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Been looking it up. 20g/litre seems to be the going rate. Keep the recipes simple to start with & change one thing at a time. That way you get to understand what the ingredients are doing. I'm a less is more kinda guy in cooking too, mind you.

Is that really 20g per litre? Just asking as its more than in your original recipe. Hopefully will pick some up this week.

Why put lactose in a brown ale at all?

clibit said:

Why put lactose in a brown ale at all?

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Must admit I'm not certain. It was a common practice to do so, you'll know that it is supposed to give a beer more body and sweetness since it's non-fermentable.

I'm looking for a sweet caramel flavoured ale. It would be mashed at 67c, have a low SG because I'm only looking at circa 3.5% alcohol. I wouldn't expect enough sweetness in the beer after fermentation, even with crystal malt at 10-15%, so I think it's likely that lactose will be required.

clibit said:

Why put lactose in a brown ale at all?

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I was wondering that. I've only really read about putting it in English style sweet stout

No reason why you couldn't, but you don't see recipes for Brown ale with lactose, as far as I can tell. Even low alcohol ones. Worth a try I guess, if you're that way inclined.

The only time I would even think about lactose would be in a milk stout....Can of Mackeson's anyone, thought not.

cornyandy said:

....Can of Mackeson's anyone,

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That's that's exactly what I was thinking about. They still sell that in Asda :electric:

clibit said:

No reason why you couldn't, but you don't see recipes for Brown ale with lactose, as far as I can tell. Even low alcohol ones. Worth a try I guess, if you're that way inclined.

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I have an old CJJ Berry book with a few. Dave Line kind of dropped the Lactose and used artificial sweeteners. I wouldn't really advocate either's recipes very much*. However, standing on the shoulders of giants, etc.

*e.g. How about this one from Mr Berry...
"Brahn Ale"
1lb Bran
2oz Hops (sic)
2lb Demerara sugar
Gravy browning (this would have been liquid caramel then)
Yeast & nutrient
3 gallons water

edit: Cheap!

Hmmm..... :)