Batch #1 (James)

Batch #1 was my first beer. As a lover of English brown ales, it was the natural first choice. I love malty brown ales like Newcastle, but am really obsessed with Rogue Hazelnet Brown Nectar these days. I wanted this brown ale to have the same combination of malty, caramel flavor with full body. Batch #1, however, was my first batch in over ten years. All of the old equipment was dragged out of the basement and cleaned. We had not yet found MyLHBS in Falls Church, so we made the mistake of ordering the ingredients from Jay's Brewing Supplies, which we thought was still located in the basement of Jay's parents house in Fairfax. Turns out, he had moved to North Carolina, so the ingredients did not even show up on time. Once they finally arrived, we made the batch and bottled it in 22oz bottles. I introduced the collective to the labeling style I used in Los Angeles, using black and white photographs of historical personages that were either appropriate for the style or amusing in some way. For a Northern English Brown Ale, the only choice was George Orwell, my favorite author and a noted lover of beer. His courageous struggle against Soviet totalitarianism mirrors our own desperate struggle against the corporate brewing, which has borrowed Moscow's playbook with respect to sucking the color and personality out of everything. This brown ale will always be my signature beer, and I committed to making it again and again until I found the perfect brown ale recipe. This batch, however, was a noble but doomed first effort. Derek from MyLHBS told us that the Briess extract we used is 10% more diluted than Munton's or Cooper's, and the batch tasted thin. Here was the recipe:

George Orwell Brown #1
11-C Northern English Brown Ale

Size: 4.44 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 112.61 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.034 (1.040 - 1.052)
Terminal Gravity: 1.009 (1.008 - 1.013)
Color: 18.6 (12.0 - 22.0)
Alcohol: 3.34% (4.2% - 5.4%)
Bitterness: 35.84 (20.0 - 30.0)

Ingredients:

0.5 lbs Munton's Crystal 60
0.5 lbs Weyermann Carafoam
0.3 lbs Munton's Chocolate Malt
6.6 lbs Briess CBW Golden Light
1.5 oz Kent Goldings (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
0.5 oz Kent Goldings (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
0.0 ea White Labs 005 British Ale

Schedule:

Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

Notes:

Brewed: 10/12/07
O.G.: 1034
Bottled on 10/23/07

First bottle sampled on 11/1/07: thin taste, resembling a hand-pulled bitter
Second bottle sampled on 11/8/07: still fairly thin taste, highly carbonated with small bubbles
Third bottle sampled on 11/17/07 for UM-OSU game: flavor smoothing out, but still not rich and malty (use of Briess was mistake)