All Grain Recipe: #22 Janet's Brown Ale, v2.0

AKA, Janet's Light Brown Ale

Janet's Brown is the next of my beer rebrews - beers that I liked, but didn't come out quite as perfect as they could have. Several process changes later and I'm ready to make them even better.

As a reminder, the main process changes involved a lower efficiency, a change in the way I scale recipes to my efficiency, racking to secondary with gelatin, the use of 5.2 pH stabilizer and yeast nutrient and lower carbonation across the board.

What I didn't intend was to use Pale Chocolate malt instead of Chocolate. It must have been a brainfart while I was measuring out ingredients at MoreBeer. I didn't even realize the mistake until I was racking into the fermentor and wondering why in the hell my beer was brown instead of black!

For all of you who are confused, let me make it clear.

YOU CANNOT SUBSTITUTE PALE CHOCOLATE MALT FOR CHOCOLATE.

Ever.

You don't sub twice as much pale chocolate for chocolate, or half as much chocolate for pale chocolate. It is about more than color -- the the two malts don't even taste alike.

So once again, no matter what the doofuses at homebrewtalk.com tell you, there are no subs. Use the right one or get out.

Of course, using a different version of chocolate malt won't ruin your beer. It will just be a different beer. Since I've brewed the original, this is a pretty good way to compare the two. The main difference I noticed is that the new version, besides being brown instead of black, has a toasted bread or cracker flavor. It still has a bit of the roasted coffee-like flavor from the regular chocolate malt, but it is much more subtle and hidden in the background. It's actually pretty damn good.

Black IPA

Black IPA, also called Cascadian Dark Ale (esp. in the pacific northwest) is called an 'emerging' west coast or northwest style. It isn't technically a style category any more than American Strong Ale is, but beers made in this 'style' are pretty distinct can't be placed in any other category.

Black IPA is like a highly hopped American Brown. It has the color and roasted dark malt flavors of a Brown and the hop bitterness, flavor and aroma of an American IPA. If you want to brew one of these for competition, your best bet is to enter it into the Specialty Beer or American Brown categories. The gravity and hopping are on or past the edge of the American Brown category, but you can probably get away with it.

The Brewer's Association has this to say about Black IPA (or as they call it, American India Black Ale) in their 2010 Beer Style Guidelines:

American-style India black ale has medium high to high hop bitterness, flavor and aroma with medium-high alcohol content, balanced with a medium body. The style is further characterized by a moderate degree of caramel malt character and medium to strong dark roasted malt flavor and aroma. High astringency and high degree of burnt roast malt character should be absent. Fruity, floral and herbal character from hops of all origins may contribute to aroma and flavor.
Original Gravity (oPlato) 1.056-1.075 (14-18.2 oPlato) ●Apparent Extract/Final Gravity (oPlato) 1.012-1.018 (3-4.5 oPlato) ● Alcohol by Weight (Volume) 5-6% (6 -7.5%) ● Bitterness (IBU) 50-70 ● Color SRM (EBC) 25+ (50+ EBC)

Some deride the idea of a Black IPA as nothing more than an American IPA with an ounce of black patent malt for color. Some brewers probably are guilty of this and deserve the mockery, but a true Black IPA isn't so easy to categorize.

Another probably with the name "Black IPA" is that the beer style has nothing to do with India and is certainly not a "Pale Ale". I'll leave arguments over nomenclature to someone who gives a damn, though. I'm more interested in drinking the beer than naming it. Still, there is a simplicity to "Black IPA" that'll probably cause it to catch on, no matter how flawed the name is.

Why am I babbling about Black IPAs? I found that I'm recently enjoying this great combination of deep, stout-like roasted malt flavor (one of my favorite styles) and American IPA hopping (another of my favorite styles). Mike McDole has claimed that his Janet's Brown Ale is closer to a Black IPA than it is to an American Brown, despite the name, and I would agree. I recently tried the Discord Dark IPA ($8 growler, including the bottle itself, from Pyramid) and was shocked by how close it was to Janet's Brown. The main differences between the two were level of roastiness and a slight difference in hop flavor. The commercial beer was also cleaner. In comparison to the professionally brewed example, I could taste flaws, particularly phenols, that I hadn't noticed before in my own beer.

I'm currently in the process of brewing Janet's Brown Ale, v2, and have made a nice big starter. Hopefully I can control the fermentation temp a little better and make an even better beer this time!

All Grain Recipe: #17 Janet's Brown Ale

Janet's Brown Ale is a hoppy American Brown Ale originally designed by famed home brewer Mike "Tasty" McDole. The story goes that this was a favorite of Mike's late wife, Janet, and he named it for her.

Mike also brewed this for the 2009 GABF ProAm and was invited as a guest brewer to Russian River Brewery in Santa Rosa, where they made a full sized batch of the stuff.

Style-wise, it is somewhere in between an American Brown and a Black IPA. Whether "Black IPA" should even be considered a style is up for debate, as some consider Black IPA to be nothing more than an American IPA with a bit of black patent thrown in. This recipe is definitely too hoppy to be a brown, and too 'roasty' to be an IPA.

I haven't had Russian River's or Mike's version of this recipe, but mine is definitely the best beer I've ever brewed. Flavor is incredibly clean with a light, roasted background flavor. The body is thick but drinkable and the bitterness is high but balances perfectly. Finally, the massive centennial flavor is presented so well here that it has now become my favorite hop. This is the first brew to make me consider 5 gallon batches, and my first beer that I think could win an award.

Below is the recipe scaled to my system, followed by the original recipe from Brewing Classic Styles.