Dear Replicator, Every summer business takes me to Boise, Idaho. Each trip I look forward to visiting the Table Rock Brewing Co. a local microbrewery that makes the best Nut Brown Ale I have ever tasted. It seems to go particularly well with a sandwich type lunch. I would appreciate very much the opportunity to make a batch or two to hold me until my next visit, can you help? Arden Seely Arden , I spoke to brewer Robert McSherry at the Table Rock Brewpub about how to make this Nut Brown Ale. Robert has been brewing at Table Rock for over 7 years, after “volunteering” at the brewery until they hired him! Robert has the past few issues of Brew Your Own on his coffee table at home, ready to read with his next pint. Nut Brown ales are a bit elusive, as there is no clear (AHA) beer style guideline for them. Nut Browns tend to be very malty, with a low hop flavor, and as the name indicates, a faint flavor of “nuts”. The alcohol level is low to medium, about 3.5% to 4.5% by volume. Robert said this beer can be described as a slightly sweet beer, with a toffee like flavor, and a slightly roasted finish. The slightly sweet flavor comes from the Dextrin and Crystal malts, which contribute non-fermentable sugars to the beer leaving some extra malt sugar sweetness in the beer that the yeast was unable to ferment. The toffee flavor comes from the Carastan malt, and the slightly roasted flavor comes from the Chocolate and Black Patent malts. Hop bitterness is low for this beer, and hop aroma is very low because Table Rock does not use any aroma hops. For more information you can call Table Rock Brewing at (208) 342-0944 . Table Rock Brewing - Nut Brown Ale (5 gallon, extract with grains) OG=1.054 FG=1.015 IBU’S = 18 Alcohol 3.9% by volume Ingredients 6.6 Lbs. Briess Light malt extract syrup 1 lb Dextrin malt .5 Lb. Carastan malt 6 ounces Brown malt 4 ounces Crystal malt (120L) 2 ounces Black Patent malt 2 ounces Chocolate malt 5.8 AAU Willamette hops (bittering hop) (1.0 oz. of 5.8% alpha acid) 1 tsp Irish moss for 60 min White Labs WLP001 California Ale yeast or Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast O.75 cup of corn sugar for priming. Step by step Steep the 6 crushed grains in 3 gallons of water at 150º for 30 minutes. Remove grains from wort, add malt syrup and bring to a boil. Add Willamette (bittering) hops, Irish moss and boil for 60 minutes. When done boiling, add wort to 2 gallons cool water in a sanitary fermenter, and top off with cool water to 5.5 gallons. Cool the wort to 80º, heavily aerate the beer and pitch your yeast. Allow the beer to cool over the next few hours to 68º-70º, and hold at these cooler temperatures until the yeast has fermented completely. Bottle your beer, age for 2-3 weeks and Enjoy! All grain option: This is a single infusion mash. Replace the light syrup with 8.0 lbs. USA pale malt, mash your grains at 158º for 60 minutes. Collect enough wort to boil for 90 minutes and have a 5.5-gallon yield. Lower the amount of the Willamette boiling hops to 0.75 oz. to account for higher extraction ratio of a full boil. The remainder of the recipe is the same as the extract.
