British Brown Ale

Historical Development

Taste, technology, and taxes. Along with the obvious limitations of agriculture, these three things have carried incredible historical weight in the establishment and evolution of beer styles. For as long as there has been ale in England, there have been laws regulating its quality and what it could be sold for. Typically paired with similar laws about the quality of bread–another instance of beer's long-running marriage to nutrition–the first concrete example we have comes from the Assize of Bread and Ale of 1266. Those laws were aimed both at taxing products and protecting consumers. As a rule, bread and ale laws in England also included measures…beer could only be served in amounts that were certified by royal gaugers. Punishment for pub owners trying to skimp people on their pint could have included the pillory and ducking stool (a punishment that led to more than a few deaths as it evolved).

As in every industry, new technologies heavily influenced (and continue to influence) styles in every way imaginable. One of the most universally impactful examples of this was the move toward indirect-fired drying in malt production. We'll have another, more detailed post on malt in the future, but to summarize, a maltster is trying to get all of the starch and protein we love in beer out of barley by tricking the kernels into believing that they're growing a new plant, then stopping them from actually growing. That way, we get all of the sugar that the barley kernel would have used as it grew underground until it reached the point that it could photosynthesize. As part of that process, the barley is soaked, then dried by heating and blowing air through it. Early in malting history, this would have been done using wood-fueled fire, meaning all malt would have been at least moderately smoky (in addition to being brown). By the early 1700s, however, malting technology advanced enough that the heating source was indirect…the finished malt, in other words, wouldn't have to be smoky (some folks, especially in Bamberg and Poland, chose to keep doing it the old way).

With this change, the smoky brown beers that would have been common in the previous century became a showcase of the flavors we now associate with medium-dark malts: caramel, toffee, molasses, and sometimes a little hint of chocolate. The brown ale, then, wasn't born out of a burst of brewing creativity, but rather out of standard brewing practice shifting gradually based on a new technology.

It might seem a little less sexy that way, but the resulting beer has a unique and now centuries-old flavor profile. Since that time, variations have evolved in the different regions of the UK…northern brewers' brown ales are often stronger, and slightly less sweet than their southern cousins. Newcastle Brown Ale, with its famous clear bottles that do nothing to keep that beautifully hued brew from skunking, fits the southern category well (ironically, that beer was developed partially to take advantage of new bottling technology in 1927…womp womp).

At Black Flannel, we brew our Nut Brown Ale in the southern English style. Sweet and full-bodied, this beer features flavors of toffee, caramel candy, and roasted walnuts, and we think it is a perfect pint on those cool fall nights that aren't quite cold enough for something darker.

Modern Evolution

Brown ale has a long history in Great Britain, although several different types of products used that name at various times. Modern brown ale is a 20th century creation as a bottled product; it is not the same as historical products of the same name. A wide range of gravities were brewed, but modern brown ales are generally of the stronger (by current UK standards) interpretation. Predominately but not exclusively a bottled product currently.