Brown Evolution

Brown ale as we know it today is a relatively modern creation, though brown beer has existed for several hundred years. Up through much of the 17th century, malted barley was dried primarily with direct heat, resulting in a harsh and smoky product. Some brews might have been lightened marginally with unmalted barley or other raw grains, as it was often noted in brewing literature of the day that the coarse character imparted by direct-heat drying was undesirable.

As brewing moved into large scale breweries early in the 18th century, coke became the preferred fuel, providing a cleaner burn and softer, less acerbic malt. Also, the degree to which it was kilned was easier to control and hence, malt could be segregated more easily by relative color from batch to batch.

Pale, amber, and brown malts, used alone or in any combination, were employed to produce the brews available in pubs. Successive worts made from a single mash would have produced several beers of different strengths. This combination of malt blends and wort gravity meant that there was a lot of variation. Add age to equation, and it gets even more diverse.

Most beers were in the amber to brown range, according to brewing documents. A nomenclature evolved to differentiate the brews, with stout, stock, stale, mild, pale, and brown among these terms. There may have been a fair number of designations, but to this point, styles were really not well-defined.

Segregation of beer into styles found a watershed in 1817, when Daniel Wheeler invented the drum kiln. It was the able to dry and toast malt without contact with the fuel, allowing the unencumbered flavor of the malt to come through. He produced roasted barley, dubbed black patent, that was added separately to a grist where desired. Modern stout and porter, containing these black malts, were born. Beers made with the patented malt were henceforth known as black beers and those without, brown. Brown ale would acquire its signature from this very movement with the development of lightly roasted and caramelized malts.

Though favored as a proletarian brew in much of England through a good portion of the 19th century, an overall lull in the demand for brown brews coincided with a movement towards pale beers, both ale and lager, into the 20th century. Brown ale was considered somewhat stodgy, but nevertheless held on just enough to keep in pubs throughout London and some other pockets of England as a session beer. Before long, one of today’s famous brewers would reintroduce the world to the pleasures of brown ale, and essentially define once and for all the modern style.

Prior to 1927, bottled versions of dark mild ale were marketed as brown ale. To capitalize on the demand for bottled beers, the brewmaster of Scottish and Newcastle, Jim Porter, was given the task of formulating a beer to fill that niche. His Newcastle Brown Ale, introduced in 1927, was designed to cater to the local working class, and was so superbly-crafted that it won a gold medal at the Brewers’ Exposition in London in 1928. The style moniker remains, the legacy of “Nookie Brown” secure since. Contemporary browns may be more aggressive in their character, but are no more drinkable than the tawny original. Nutty, with a delicate caramel background and dryish finish, no beer seems easier on the palate.

The Roots

Until about 300 years ago, most English beer was dark, murky, and often dubiously fermented with wild yeast. It had some smoky character, as malt was dried over wood or coal fires. Often, the malt was referred to as “brown malt.” At a time when a single malt was used to make beer, it is easy to see why the beers had the character that they did.

Multiple batch brewing was common in the Middle Ages. Successive worts were drawn from the mash via saturation and draining of the grist. Each batch produced a lower-strength wort and was designated stout, strong brown, common brown, and intire, in decreasing order of strength. Common brown is an approximation of today’s brown ale, but was significantly stronger.

Eventually, malting skills progressed to the point where some specific types of malt were produced. These ran the gamut from pale through amber, brown, and even dark brown. These malts were mixed in different ratios, or used alone, to produce a rainbow of ales, including porter, brown ale, stout, mild, and pale ales, with porter often being the dominant brew. Sometimes, finished beers—some aged, some new—were blended.

By the early 19th century, newly developed pale malts spawned something of a revolution in brewing. Pale ales were brewed extensively in central England, but brown ales held fort in other areas of England as a distinctive alternative, especially in London and later in the northeast. Brown ales were further distilled as a style with the London brewers favoring a darker, sweeter, low-strength beer, while those in the northeast made theirs stronger, crisper, and lighter in color. These two delineations still exist.

The advent of homebrewing and microbrewing in America had yet another profound effect on brown ale formulations. As they were not necessarily beholden to traditional parameters, these experimental brewers played with the ingredients enough to warrant recognition of a neo-brown style. They preserved color and malt character but pushed the hop envelope significantly by using generous amounts for both bittering and aroma. They also brewed to a higher gravity. Brown ale is now a popular brew all across America.