Brew Day and Tasting Notes: Long Leash/North Shore Brewers 2025 Q3 British Brown Ale

When British Brown Ale was drawn as the style for our club's quarterly style and in-club competition, this was an opportunity for another Hombrew Con 2022 rebrew. Whereas Maximillian Lager was brewed for the Muntons booth in the exhibition hall, Long Leash was brewed for my seminar on English Ales. 

Long Leash was one of four batches I brewed for my talk. A new recipe at the time, I developed it to demonstrate my beliefs in recipe development for English ales. A well-crafted English ale should be a base-malt driven beer. Even my English Porter recipe is 87% base malt.

To test my theory I took the porter recipe, replacde the Chocolate Malt with Brown Malt, replaced Wheat Malt with Crystal malt, and replaced the small amount of Extra Dark Crystal in the porter with Chocolate Malt in the brown ale.

For the seminar I brewed four, three gallon batches which was not nearly enough beer. Most attendees were lucky to be able to taste two out of the four. I barely had a chance to taste any of the beers. The brown ale was the only new recipe, so I was very excited to brew a full batch to have all to myself.

I made a few minor tweaks to the recipe. The original recipe used Muntons Craft Pale malt; a winter barley. This time I used the Crisp Best Ale malt my local hombrew shop carries which there is a fair chance is also made with Craft barley. I single hopped the beer with East Kent Goldings to use up some aging hops I had on hand. The biggest change was replacing Safale S04 with the cleaner and higher-attenuating Nottingham. 

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A post shared by Jason Chalifour (@wouldbebrewmaster)

 

This was also my first brew day since adding a new hot liquor tank and pump to my brewhouse. 

For my commercial side-by-side, I compared my brown ale to a local classic: Pig's Ear Brown Ale from Woodstock Inn Brewery. 

Aroma

Long Leash: Toasty malt followed by caramel. Low earthy hops and esters. 

Pig’s Ear: Sweeter aroma, toffee and caramel with lots of floral esters. No hop aroma which is ok for style. 

Appearance 

Long Leash: Dark brown, almost opaque but good clarity when held up to light. Thin off white head with good retention. 

Pig’s Ear: A couple shades lighter for sure. Thicker, frothier head with similar retention. 

Flavor 

Long Leash: Medium-low caramel on the front of the palate at first, then lots of brown toast. Tiny bit of chocolate as beer warms. Moderate earthy English hop flavor and bitterness at higher end of style range. Fermentation clean, low esters. 

Pig’s Ear: Much more caramelly and soft. Hint of chocolate and roast provides balance. Fermentation quite floral, if not quite as much as Fullers. Overall reminds me me a bit of Newcastle Brown Ale, but richer. 

Mouthfeel 

Long Leash: Medium body and carbonation. Hop bitterness and toasty malt dry out finish. 

Pig’s Ear: Body and carbonation exactly the same. Finish more neutral and not nearly as dry. 

Overall

Both beers are to style, but at opposite ends in almost every way. Long Leash is as toasty as it is caramely, hop flavor enhances the toasty malt, and a fairly clean fermentation stays out of the way for the most part. Pig’s Ear on the other hand leans way more into the caramel flavor, has almost no hop flavor, and is quite floral. 

Pig’s Ear is definitely smoother and easier to drink. Long Leash has the bolder flavor with the toasty malt and earthy hops. Long Leash does get smoother with each sip, but I still probably preferred Pig’s Ear. 

If the comments above feel lukewarm, the beer fared better at the September North Shore Brewers meeting as I won for the first time and had the honors to draw the style for Q1 of 2026.

When I blind-tasted at the meeting, there were two I thought that could have been my beer. The comment I jotted down for my beer was "want more sweetness". This batch is to style, but maybe isn't what I want out of the style. There are a few changes I could make. I could use a less-attenuative yeast. I could just add more Crystal Malt. Maybe I could ditch the Brown Malt all together.

I'll see how I feel about this beer as I drink more of it and finish the keg. 

Recipe: North Shore Brewers Q3 2025 British Brown Ale
Brewer: Jason Chalifour
Style: British Brown Ale
TYPE: All Grain


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 6.35 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.68 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.25 gal   
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.052 SG
Estimated Color: 19.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 24.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 77.9 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt              Name                                             Type          #          %/IBU         Volume        
8.00 gal         Brown Balanced (18-30 SRM)                       Water         1          -             -             
3.44 g           Chalk (Mash)                                     Water Agent   2          -             -             
3.21 g           Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Mash)                        Water Agent   3          -             -             
1.60 g           Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash)                  Water Agent   4          -             -             
8 lbs 8.0 oz     Best Ale (Crisp) (3.6 SRM)                       Grain         5          87.5 %        0.66 gal      
9.0 oz           Brown Malt (Muntons) (76.1 SRM)                  Grain         6          5.8 %         0.04 gal      
6.5 oz           Crystal 110 (40L) (Muntons) (55.8 SRM)           Grain         7          4.2 %         0.03 gal      
4.0 oz           Chocolate Malt (Muntons) (520.3 SRM)             Grain         8          2.6 %         0.02 gal      
1.28 oz          East Kent Goldings (EKG) [4.70 %] - Boil 45.0 mi Hop           9          21.1 IBUs     -             
0.26 tsp         Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)                      Fining        10         -             -             
0.70 oz          East Kent Goldings (EKG) [4.70 %] - Steep/Whirlp Hop           11         3.0 IBUs      -             
1.0 pkg          Nottingham Yeast (Lallemand #-) [23.66 ml]       Yeast         12         -             -             


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 9 lbs 11.5 oz
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Mash In           Add 3.14 gal of water at 163.3 F        152.0 F       60 min        

Sparge: Fly sparge with 4.48 gal water at 168.0 F
Notes:
------
First brew with new HLT and second pump pumping wort from MT to boil kettle.

Sparge stuck or pump stuck when 4.5 gal of wort was collected. Need extra sparge water next time. Was able to stir mash, 

run off into pitcher and collect last gallon and a half. Used all EKG, had plenty on hand, smelled somewhat fresh but 

maybe starting to turn, wanted to use. 

Also used second pump to whirlpool instead of just stirring. Ground water still quite warm. Chilled to 88F and put in 

chamber set to 67F. Next morning temp was down to 63F, beer was still fermenting, plugged in heat wrap to bring back 

to temp. High krausen done by day 3.