Cognitions of FunFun

So after a great success with my first successful solo brew – an Irish Red Ale – and a second brew in the secondary fermenter – a Boston Lager – I have decided to move on to my third installment of the JonnyFunFun homebrew.  This time: an all-grain clone of Newcastle Brown Ale, my personal favorite store-bought beer.

Now for those of you unfamiliar with Newcastle Brown Ale, or those of you who are not heavy beer connosieurs, Newcastle is technically a blend of two brewed beers, one light ale and one dark ale, which brings forth a very distinct taste.  Newcastle itself is a very rich English ale, darker in color, with a very sweet and malty flavor.  To me, Newcastle is one of the smoothest and richest ales that one can buy – and goes down very easy.

So the recipe that I am going with is a general approximation and guess of what Newcastle Brown Ale should be, so throughout the brewing process, I am going to end up doing a lot of tweaking to the recipe in order to get it to where I believe it should be.  So for those of you who want the details, here it is:

The Grains (Total 9.5 lbs):

• Marris Otter 2-row Malt – 9lbs.
• Chocolate Malt – 3oz.
• Crystal Malt (50L) – 3oz.
• Black Patent Malt – 2oz.

The Hops (Total 1oz., approximately 30 IBU):

• East Kent Goldings (UK) – 0.5oz. – Finishing
• Willamette or Target – 0.5oz. – Bittering

The Yeast (Total 1800ml):

• British Ale Yeast

Now for the hops, due to the recent hop shortage, I was forced to go with Willamette hops instead of the Target hops – a substitution which I believe should turn out alright.  All of the ingredients are UK imports, so nothing is a domestic variety.  The exact yeast I chose to go with was the Wyeast 1098 British Ale liquid yeast and accompanying 1090XL activator.  All grain are coming to me whole grain, and will be dealt with on the day of the brewing.

The only problem I have with the above recipe, which seems to be an adaptation of a similar recipe I found on brew365.com, is the somewhat skewed malt-to-hop ratio, so the final brewing of this particular batch of beer is going to be adapted on-the-fly.

The scheduled date for this brewing session is going to be this Saturday, April 5th, provided that all necessary supplies come in before then.  Anybody who knows me personally is invited to attend and lend a helping hand if they so desire.  More details on this brewing endeavour will come soon!