Newcastle Brown

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happy benno

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My next brew i would like to try is the Brewcraft newcastle brown, as iv'e heard is very popular.

has anyone tried this.

Yeast Essentials Saf Ale S-04

Ideal brewing temp range 18-25 degrees

Ingredients Brewcraft Premium Imported Newcastle Brown,

Black Rock Light Liquid Malt 1.5kg, Crushed Chocolate Grain

100g-200g, Brewcraft Belgian Candy Sugar 400g

Extra Hops Brewcraft Finishing Hops Fuggles 15g

Special Instructions Bring 3 Litres of water to the boil,

add the crushed Chocolate Grain (use between 100-200g

depending on taste, the more grain the nuttier the finish) &

simmer gently for 20 minutes. For the final minute of the simmer

add the Fuggles Hops & simmer gently for one minute. Turn off

heat and rest for 15 minutes, then strain into your brew. For extra

flavour add the hop bag to your brew. Continue brewing as normal.

Final Volume 21 Litres
 
Gday Benno,
Coincidentally I just had my first ever Newcy Brown about an hour ago. And I have to say it was ok, but not as good as I was expecting. Hhmmm....I'll have another one tomorrow night and see how it goes. :)

Sorry I cant help with the recipe mate, although I couldn't taste much chocolate in there.

Cheers,
Jake
 
Disclaimer: I'm from Newcastle myself. (ahm from newcassel mesen) ;)

For a kit brew that's not a bad attempt at the broon. Newcastle Brown is made as a blend of a dark brown beer that is not sold commercially and a lighter amber ale. It is brewed with sugars and syrups and the hop list is: Northdown, Hallertau, Northern Brewer and Target.

Of course you don't know what is in the 'imported' kit but obviously the candi sugar is a replacement for the sugar and syrup, and I would guess that the fuggles is an aroma replacement for the Northdown hops that are a variant of fuggles.


Yeast looks reasonable.


Ferment it fairly cool, don't rush it and it should be yummy. One saving grace of attempting the broon as a kits and bits is that, unlike most UK ales, Newcastle Brown isn't a hugely "all grain driven" beer and depends a lot on flavouring and colouring malts, sugar, syrup and its hops so you can have a good crack at it without going all grain.

Enjoy
:)
 
ok point one. dont boil the grain just steep it like tea, actually if you have one of those coffee plungers put it in there and let it steep for the time. strain the liquid off and flush with a second amount of water.
boiling will extract tannins which will result in unfavorable tastes in the finished product.
point 2 boil the resultant liquid as per above.
point 3 dont be scared when the hop bag bursts and brew goes green. it will settle out in the fermentor.
enjoy mate
 
It definitely had some sugars in there Bribie, and was on the real nutty side of chocolate :).
 
Gday Benno,
Coincidentally I just had my first ever Newcy Brown about an hour ago. And I have to say it was ok, but not as good as I was expecting. Hhmmm....I'll have another one tomorrow night and see how it goes. :)

Sorry I cant help with the recipe mate, although I couldn't taste much chocolate in there.

Cheers,
Jake

Gday jake,
i'm pretty keen on this one and was expecting great results as well, i will still give it a go

do you keg or bottle and how long did you leave it before taste

cheers Benno
 
do you keg or bottle and how long did you leave it before taste
Well, lets see....I got out of the car, walked inside, drank a tallie of Melbourne Bitter (at Bribie's unspoken suggestion), then cracked open a can of Newcastle Brown :D

I think I was drinking it within seconds of it leaving the can. Like I said, my first ever Newcy Brown. :)

But I bought a 4-pack so my tasting experiments will continue.

Cheers,
Jake
 
Back in my bad old K&K days, I did a Brewcraft NBA with their own sugar #72, and nothing else, i.e. plain old 'vanilla', but with S04 to use as a basis for further experimentation. My guess is that your recipe would be streets ahead as mine was quite unremarkable, watery, eau- de- cardboard and nothing to write home about.
Without the benefit of many locally- available style types to rate it against and use for direction, I was unsure where to go from there, but I did some more as K&B with extracts and Fuggles. As BribieG relates, it seemed to be fairly well suited to non- AG, so with me being pretty green, that's partly why I wanted to have another crack at it.
Now, with Spousie being a full- blooded Geordie I thought then that my new you- beaut, goanna- proof Newcie Broon would be a winner in the pants-down department for sure, or at least warm the cockles, however she just sank it without remark or much in the way of encouragement, other than very unlady- like belches, and then asked for her usual spirits instead... such sacrelige... major disappointment... But I didn't mind it at all and I still had quite a few more bottles to knock over. In the end I gave the K&B NBA away though, but not without some regrets...
 
I have a Brewcraft Newcastle brown Fermenting now i don't have the Brew notes with me as they are round at the Brew house( ROFL mum's)
 
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that with this particular kit, you do actually want to simmer the grains for the 20 minutes, rather than just steep.

I've done enough brews, and enough lurking on AHB to know why you're not meant to simmer, but in my humble opinion, the tannins that the simmering process extracts work very well against the sweetness of the combined kit + LME.

My 4th ever brew, before I had read enough to know better, I did this kit, to the letter (see here) including the simmering of the grains for 20 minutes. Turned out to be one of the best brews I've ever made, one I was sad to see the last bottle of. I tried to reproduce the beer again a couple of months ago, this time with the hindsight of having read "How to Brew", and knowing more of what I wanted to brew, so used Crystal Malt, rather than Chocolate, and steeped, rather than simmered. The beer was just "meh?", a boring brown, rather than black, ale.

I have since introduced the father-in-law into the joys of homebrewing, and last month he made himself the same Brewcraft Newkie, and just like my younger self, followed the supplied recipe to the letter. We popped one last weekend, and whadayaknow, it has turned out to be a rich, balanced, and very tasty beverage.

I understand that a sample size of 3 brews does not give a whole lot of scientific confidence, so wanted to throw the challenge out there to see if any of the more experienced brewers out there have had a similar experience.

Could the extracted tannins sometimes be a positive in our richer, darker beers, in the same way they work in some of the more mouth-puckering wines?

Cheers,

Brett
 
Must have got it to carb up then WB
 
Gday Benno,
Coincidentally I just had my first ever Newcy Brown about an hour ago. And I have to say it was ok, but not as good as I was expecting. Hhmmm....I'll have another one tomorrow night and see how it goes. :)

Sorry I cant help with the recipe mate, although I couldn't taste much chocolate in there.

Cheers,
Jake

Gday jake,
i'm pretty keen on this one and was expecting great results as well, i will still give it a go

do you keg or bottle and how long did you leave it before taste

cheers Benno

just a little OT, but for those who are trying it for the first time. I didn't understand what the big deal about this beer was when I first tried it in the bottle. I just moved to geelong and my local had it on tap. Absolutely amazing the difference. Don't judge it until you've tried the draught version.

Then the pub got rid of it :angry:
 
just a little OT, but for those who are trying it for the first time. I didn't understand what the big deal about this beer was when I first tried it in the bottle. I just moved to geelong and my local had it on tap. Absolutely amazing the difference. Don't judge it until you've tried the draught version.

Then the pub got rid of it :angry:
Point taken Ronin. Not much chance of finding it on tap up here though unless I brew it myself.
But I might do just that.

Cheers,
Jake
 
Gday all, i put down the newy brown on the weakend, i will let you now how how it goes it smells quit nice very nice colour.

cheers benno
 
Don't judge it until you've tried the draught version.

Then the pub got rid of it :angry:

Agreed the draught version is tasty! But my local has ALLWAYS run out <_< Ill be luck if I get one Pint a month before the "Sorry sold out" sign hangs over the tap :(
 
I believe the tap version is BUL by Fosters in the same plant that does Guinness and Kilkenny. The UK Newcastle brewed bottle version isn't brewed in Newcastle any more, but in Gateshead across the river in the former Northern Clubs Federation Brewery that Scottish Courage took over a few years ago. My brother lives round the corner.

When I was a kid, the broon was called 'jungle juice' and 'journey into space' after a sci fi show of the time. A shadow of its former self although still drinkable.

There's a Bris. club comp on after Easter for a UK brown and I'll have a crack at an AG 5.5 version. I have found out what hops they use. :)
 
Yeah, took about 4 weeks.

Nowadays I've got enough of a stockpile that it doesn't matter, but back then, living beer-to-beer, 4 weeks seemed like an eternity ;)

A good point here on the dark ales.
Ive done a NB and found it to improve dramatically with age. Unfortunately there's no way I know to fake this, but if you like it at first leave as much as you can as long as you can to enjoy at its best.
I know a fellow who has some Stouts Porters and other dark ales that are years old and reckons they are superb. I dont doubt it.
Good luck with yours it may be very nice in the winter. :icon_cheers:
Daz
 
Hi all, i racked my brown to my keg three nights ago and carbed it up had a taste, it was very tasty for only 48hrs in the keg i could realy taste the nutty after taste, i will let it mature another week or so before i get stuck into it.

cheers Benno
 

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