Brown Ales

There is quite a wide range of beers that can be classified as Brown Ales. Original gravity can be as low as 1.040 (or even a bit lower), or as high as 1.055, giving alcohol percentages from about 4% to 7%. Colour can be dark, yet clear and fairly easy to see through, or it can be a fairly solid, dark black. The flavour of a Brown Ale can be thick and heavy, or light and delicate. One of our favorites is so light tasting that you'd never guess with your eyes closed that it was a Brown Ale. For an authentic Brown Ale, keep the hopping strictly UK with Nugget, Fuggles, East Kent Golding and the likes. Brewing one of the lighter coloured and flavoured varieties with North American or other non-UK hops would give more of a North American Brown Ale. Keep in mind that this is our own definition of Brown Ale, which probably won't get you very far in most brewing circles. For details on a more stringent definition, see our styles page.

Most of the recipes here were our own creation - the products of our own experimention. In fact, these recipes are a very good example of finding something that works extremely well, then tweaking it here and there to see if we can make it even better. The end result is that we now have several extremely good Brown Ale recipes to choose from.

Most of our own Brown Ale recipes are named after Alan's grandfather Vasili Nikolaevich Bellick, who took on the name Billy Bellick when he immigrated from Ukraine to North America in 1912. Many of the good folks in our home town couldn't remember his last name, so he soon became known as "Billy Brown". We are fully aware that in some circles the word "Bohunk" is a derogatory term used for Ukrainians. However, in our household it was always a term of endearment for some reason, used by ourselves to refer to both the Ukrainian and the Polish sides of our family. We're sorry if the term offends anyone who knows it in it's derogatory context.(1)

Method	OG	Recipe	Comment
extract	1.042	Bohunk Brown Ale	Very popular, lighter in flavour
extract	1.042	Bohunk Nut-Brown Ale	Slight variation on old favorite
extract	1.042	Bohunk Nut-Brown Ale	Very popular, lighter in flavour
extract	1.043	Bohunk Honey-Brown Ale	A touch of honey to liven things up
full mash	1.043	Papa Bill's Brown Ale	An allgrain version of an old friend
full mash	1.045	Papa Bill's Brown Ale	Ingredients not exactly as listed
full mash	1.047	Papa Bill's Brown Ale	Very different recipe; much darker
extract	1.047	Dithrambic Brown Ale	By Charlie Papazian
extract	1.054	Dithrambic Brown Ale	Lighter Colour than Above
full mash	1.044	Papa Bill's Brown Ale	yet another slight variation
full mash	1.048	Not So Brown Ale

(1)Under Canada's hate-crimes laws I as a person of Ukrainian and Polish descent am legally allowed to use the term "Bohunk", where persons not of this descent could potentially be prosecuted for using such a term in a manner to provoke or promote hatred against that group of people.

Bodensatz Brewing

Brown Ales