Bell’s Best Brown Ale clone

5 gallons, extract with grains; OG = 1.058 FG = 1.013 IBUs = 30 ABV = 5.9%

Ingredients:

• 6.6 lbs. Briess light malt extract syrup
• 14 oz. Briess Victory malt
• 14 oz. Briess Special Roast malt
• 14 oz. Briess crystal malt (60° L)
• 2 oz. Briess chocolate malt
• 6.2 AAU Cascade hops (bittering hop) (0.75 oz. of 8.3% alpha acid)
• 3.25 AAU Nugget hops (bittering hop) (0.25 oz. of 13% alpha acid)
• 1.2 AAU Fuggle hops (flavor hop) (0.25 oz. of 4.7% alpha acid)
• 2.4 AAU Fuggle hops (aroma hop) (0.5 oz. of 4.7% alpha acid)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss for 45 min.
• White Labs WLP001 (California Ale) or Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) yeast
• 0.75 cup of corn sugar for priming

Step by step:

Steep crushed malts in three gallons of water at 150º F for 30 min. Remove grains from wort, add malt syrup and powder and bring to a boil. Add Cascade and Nugget (bittering) hops, Irish moss and boil for 45 min. Add 0.25 ounce of Fuggle hops (flavor hops) for last 15 min. of the boil. Add 0.5 ounce of Fuggle (aroma) hops for the last two minutes of the boil.

When done boiling, strain out hops, add wort to two gallons cool water in a sanitary fermenter, and top off with cool water to 5.5 gallons. Cool the wort to 80º F, aerate the beer and pitch your yeast. Allow the beer to cool over the next few hours to 68-70º F, and ferment for 10-14 days. Bottle your beer, age for two to three weeks and enjoy!

All-grain option:

Replace the light syrup with 8.25 lbs. 2-row pale malt. Mash all your grains at 155º F for 45 minutes. Collect enough wort to boil for 75 min. and have a 5.5-gallon yield. Lower the amount of the Cascade boiling hops to 0.5 of an ounce to account for higher extraction ratio of a full boil. The remainder of the recipe is the same as the extract.