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.

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.