First off, I'm an Old American. Second, I wanted to make an ale with an Old American taste. Reading about hops, I found that Cluster hops are a native American hops, so I decided to make a dark ale using the Cluster hops. I'm including some steeping grains to give it a roasted flavor and I'm adding some wheat to the brew as well.

Seems like something that might have been brewed 100 years ago - but maybe I'm wrong. I open to your comments. I'll probably brew this on Saturday.


American Brown Ale
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Brewer: xs400
Style: American Brown Ale
Batch: 2.25 galExtract

Characteristics
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Recipe Gravity: 1.052 OG
Recipe Bitterness: 28 IBU
Recipe Color: 20° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.013
Alcohol by Volume: 5.0%
Alcohol by Weight: 3.9%

Ingredients
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Briess DME - Bavarian Wheat 1.00 lb, Extract, Extract
Briess DME - Golden Light 1.00 lb, Extract, Extract
Crystal 40L 0.25 lb, Grain, Steeped
MrB. Booster 0.40 lb, Sugar, Other
Roasted Barley 0.25 lb, Grain, Steeped

Cluster 0.50 oz, Pellet, 35 minutes
Cluster 0.50 oz, Pellet, 10 minutes

Nottingham 1.00 unit, Yeast,

Notes
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Recipe Notes:


Batch Notes:

Looks pretty good to me. Ferment cool, if you can...many of the early brewers in the US came from a German background and used German lager yeasts. Cool fermented Notty should get you close to that character.

Fair warning, some people find Cluster to have a black currant flavor/aroma, while others interpret that as cat pee (seriously--I'm not making this up).

Personally, I love Cluster...but just giving you fair warning that not everybody does. Give 'em a sniff before you use 'em. If they smell fine, you should be ok. If something smells off, change up your hop schedule to use only a small bittering charge of cluster @ 60"...they're quite a clean bittering hop.

Thanks for the comments. I've also read comments online that some people think Cluster has that cat pee flavor. I'm willing to give the Cluster hops a try, however. Seems like it's a hops that you either like it or you don't.

I got the above fermenting right now. The Nottingham yeast is going crazy. Speaking of the Nottingham, the instructions say if the package has been opened to use the yeast within 3 days. Well, I had about 5 grams of the Nottingham left over from over from another brew from 2 weeks ago. The open yeast package was kept in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. So I rehydrated the at 100, cooled it and then pitched at 70, then put it in my laundry room at 64. Within 12 hours I saw activity and after 24 hours it was going crazy.

One more thing, the final hops addition was 0.75 for 30 minutes and 0.25 oz for 10 minutes. The hops were pitched without using hop sack. I pitched the Cluster hops thinking that might have been how it was done 100 years ago.

Looks like a tasty recipe.

How much water do you start your boil with? I've been using 1-1/2 gallons of water for boiling hops and malt extract together for a Mr Beer size extract only recipe.

when I do a mr. beer sized extract batch, I do 3 gallon boils. I boil off enough to get me to 2.25 gallons. boiloff rate will be different for everyone though

I used 1 1/5 gallons of water for the boil.

I tasted a sample bottle after 1 week carbonation. Tastes good so far, but definitely needs more time in the bottle.

I tried a bottle of my Olde American last night. It's been in the bottle for 2 1/2 weeks now. I have to say it has a very good and unique flavor. A dark beer with little roasty flavor from the roasted barley. The cluster hops gives it some bitterness and an earthy flavor. Quite different from anything else I've brewed, but still very good. I will make it again someday because of the unique flavor.

Nice to hear it turned out good.

It's fun to experiment with flavors.