Is "Southern English Brown" really a thing?

[seymour]

As you know, the BJCP style guidelines make a big distinction between Northern English Brown Ales and Southern English Brown Ales. Do you Englishmen draw the same line in the sand, so to speak?

I've never tasted Mann's Brown Ale, which is apparently the one beer upon which the entire Southern English Brown category is based. It's not exported to the States, so tell me: how does it taste? I know it's relatively sweeter, and lower-alcohol than other brown-coloured-ales-from-England, but is it really so distinct as to require a separate listing? Or a related question: why isn't it considered a Mild Ale? What do you guys think?

I'm not necessarily trying to start another rant about how wrong BJCP is about English brewing heritage. You know I agree 100%, I'm on your side of that argument. What I'm really asking is this: do you guys really think of Southern English Brown as a thing? Is this truly a beer you set out to brew differently than any other style of beer? If so, how would your dream Southern English Brown be brewed?

[Clibit]

On this subject:

https://zythophile.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... brown-ale/

My take on this is that brown ales went out of vogue here probably around 40 years ago. My dad used to drink a bottle of Whitbread Forest brown ale occasionally, and I occasionally had one too. There's clearly such thing as a brown ale, but Mann's is very mild-like, I agree. It's ok, nothing special. The north and south brown ale means very little to me, it seems to be based on Newcastle brown and Mann's, two commercial brown ales, by name, that have survived. I think a brown ale occupies the space between a mild and a porter, probably. And probably involves pale malt, crystal and less chocolate malt than a porter? I'm no expert here, sorry.

[Barley Water]

Well clearly I don't know the answer to that question as I am just a hick from Dallas who has never been to the UK. Right now, the BJCP guidelines are being "adjusted" and I would hope that, to the extent the current guidelines are messed up in regards to English beer, that somebody in the know at least tries to get them corrected. Like it or not, on this side of the pond especially (but I suspect also on your side at least judging by the posts on the subject in these forums that I have seen) the guidelines seem carry significant weight. Just like every other widely distributed so called authoritative text, once the stuff gets out there people tend to put stock in it, rightly or wrongly. I probably do maybe 20 five gallon batches a year and a large percentage of that effort is British ale. My goal is to make the absolute best examples I can and I would be a lier if I tried to maintain those guidelines don't influence my recipes and processes. Anyway, they were taking comments and I would encourage you folks who actually know the subject matter to speak up if you think what is proposed is wrong or misguided.

[Clibit]

I think Ron Pattinson sheds some light here:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... n-ale.html


"Brown Ale. I won't stoop to mention the invented catgorisation of Northern and Southern Brown Ale.... "

[oldbloke]

I grew up in SW England, with Courage's brown. Not vastly different really from something like Sam Smith's nut brown, from the north. Maybe not quite as dark or malty and probably less hopped.
Mann's is like a dark mild but with even less hop than the milds I drink now. I like it if I'm driving as you can pace it to not go over the limit. It says brown on the label but it's very dark compared to most, wherever they're from. An odd choice to characterise the southern brown style, to my mind. But then I wouldn't pick newkie to represent the North either, given there are so many better browns from up there.

[Dennis King]

Fairly sure Newcastle brown is not a true brown. I have tried a few, although many years ago and mainly from southern breweries, and found the difference minimal. Newcastle brown being the exception.

[Graham]

I would say that the answer to this depends upon time and place. At one time (early 19th century) all beers (as opposed to ales) were known as brown beers. Also, at one time, all brewers produced a brown ale, but these days brown ale is almost extinct in the south. It will not be found on the shelves in the majority of pubs, but when it can be found it will be Manns - probably the last survivor of the type. The brown ales from the 1960s onwards were fairly unremarkable; this was in the days when common-grist brewing was the order of the day. A typical brewery brewed all its beers using exactly the same grist, irrespective of its style or colour. Hop rates were very similar but sometimes proportional to original gravity; depending upon how much they were liquored down. Beers would be modified post-brewing to imitate a style. Mild ale was a weak light ale darkened with caramel; brown ale was bottled mild ale. Old ale was ordinary bitter coloured with caramel and so on. These products were mediocre at best, weak and very samey in taste between types and even between brewers.

I would suggest that modern brown ale does not deserve a mention in BJCP guidelines and should they wish to specify a brown ale it should be of a more historical type that had both strength and a unique flavour. I regret to say that Britain is not the beer utopia that many Americans seem to think, although it is considerably better today than it was in the 1960s/70s - still little or no brown ale though.

[brewnaboinne]

The only commonly available Brown ale is Newcastle Brown, so the answer to the queston would have to be "not really a thing"

[legion]

Harveys from southern england do a Lewes Castle Brown Ale which is available in bottles in my local Harveys pub. Not sure whether it is to the style of the bjcp guidelines. This split of southern / northern has always seemed odd to me.

[timbo41]

I use the term brown ale for anything that the nash temp and yeast attenuation went wrong!
Tto add to OP question.... When did anyone last see a brown ale in a pub
My local Royal British Legion has some manns gathering dust on thhe shelf...even the real old boys here drink the GK kak

[woblylegs]

a local i go in has Sam smiths nut brown in bottles all the time. i have one when i go in as a think its a nice tasty drink. much better than Newcastle brown ale

[Kyle_T]

We have shops round here that sell it and I'm not far off making a clone recipe for it either.

[seymour]

So, it sounds like there are two main modern-day brown ales everyone has heard of:
Newcastle Brown Ale (which is amber coloured, thin and watery, finishes dry) and Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale (which is dark brown coloured, full-bodied with malt complexity and some residual sweetness). Very different but both Northern, right?

I guess styles are just tricky and arbitrary. Martyn, Ron and Graham all do such a good job of describing actual brown-coloured-ales-from-England across the ages, so of course it would be hard put them in neat and tidy boxes. But from the very small sample size, it doesn't seem you Englishmen view Northern versus Southern English Brown Ales as a necessary way to distinguish them?

[oldbloke]

How would Vaux Double Maxim be characterised? I know Vaux are gone but somebody else was making it - Robinson's?

[Hugh Jampton]

I like Manns Brown Ale and often buy it. I bought some in my local Asda last week in 500 ml bottles for £1. They also had Bass for £1.

Manns is sweet, chocolatey and roasty. It's only 2.8% ABV.

I've never liked Newcastle Brown. It's too full of chemicals and additives. They are changing the the recipe soon to take some of the chemicals out because they may be carcinogenic.