Manns brown ale clone

[Dazzer]

Hello

Has anyone brewed an ale like manns, dark in colour with a taste like burnt toffee?

I was thinking once i get a recipe near enough, take 2 litres out of the wort and reduce it in a pan till it goes like syrup. than add it back in?

Will that give it the toffee taste? or is their a better way

[Graham]

Hello

Has anyone brewed an ale like manns, dark in colour with a taste like burnt toffee?

I was thinking once i get a recipe near enough, take 2 litres out of the wort and reduce it in a pan till it goes like syrup. than add it back in?

Will that give it the toffee taste? or is their a better way

That'll probably do it, but whoever makes Mann's won't go to all that trouble.

Most brown ales, until their demise, were simply a light ale with caramel added. You can't get much lighter than Mann's, at 2.8%. Still brewed in the Watney's tradition I notice - almost weak enough to be legally sold to kids.

[Dazzer]

Bit of a cheek but have you got a recipe that will do the trick? with a bit more strengh in it, maybe 4% or more?

[Dazzer]

I think the key would be high mash temperature, quite a bit of crystal and possibly a yeast with a low attenuation (oh and not to many hops). I wouldn't like to speculate on a recipe but I quite like Manns Brown ale occasionally, it is only 2.8% though.

Thanks Daab, I've always liked manns just thought i'd give it ago.

Lets get some crystal and get brewing!!!!

[Graham]

The toffee taste you seek will almost certainly be caramel.

Latter-day mass-market brown-ales were merely bottled-versions of mild, and these mild ales and brown ales were faked by the major breweries by taking a bog-standard "running" light ale and adding caramel to it. This probably accounts for their demise; the public are rarely fooled by fakes.

There is no reason to suppose that Mann's is any different, particularly considering its association with Watney's. However, it is the last surviving beer of its type, so perhaps there is something different about it.

You will find it quite a challenge to brew a 2.8% beer though. Manns certainly will not brew it at that low gravity - poor vessel utilisation, it will be high-gravity brewed, perhaps 1050 or so and then post-diluted at packaging with de-oxygenated water to the desired strength, dosed with errr... caramel and a sweetener, then pasteurised.

To brew a proper brown, use a mild recipe that takes your fancy (a recipe with no sugar and lots of crystal) and bottle it. It might not match Mann's though. Manns is sweet, so it would pay to use a poorly-attenuating yeast - sometimes known as a stout yeast - the Muntons stuff that they use with their high-sugar-level beer kits would probably be appropriate (not Muntons Gold though).

Otherwise it's a pale, lightly-hopped beer with caramel added. Your idea of burning malt extract solution is a good one as a substitute for caramel. Burning a sugar solution would work too.

The major problem with either way would be maintaining the sweetness in a non-fermentable manner. High levels of crystal, no sugar, and poorly-attenuating yeast will help in that direction as Daab suggested, but you may need to add an artificial sweetener, as manns doubtless do.

I wonder if Dave Line produced a recipe - I'll have a look - be prepared for saccharine if he has, though.

[Graham]

Well knock me down with a feather! He did!.

Although it goes against most of my previous advice, it looks as if it is pretty authentic (for the 70s), because it uses all of the questionable brewing practices that made Watney's infamous. 30% sugar, caramel, hop extract, and artificial sweetener.

I'll post it later, because my bed is beckoning heavily at the moment. It'll take a bit of adjustment to adapt, but I am sure that the basic recipe is based upon the genuine article, for the early 1970s anyway.

[Graham]

From D.L. "Brewing Beers Like..."
Manns Brown Ale

3.2% Alcohol

For 15 Litres

Malt Extract Syrup: 1000gm
Crushed Black Malt: 60gm
Invert Sugar: 500gm
Caramel: 10ml

Northern Brewer Hops: 15gm
Hop Extract: 30gm (equiv)

Saccharine tablets: 5

As I said, earlier, it looks fairly authentic, and it reflects how I would have expected it to have been made in the 60s/70s. It looks as Dave Line had access to the original recipe. It will take a bit of adapting, if only to remove the hop extract and, perhaps, the saccharine.

[mysterio]

Would brewing such a low gravity beer with that amount of sugar not make it taste incredibly watery?

I've never tried Mann's right enough so I don't know if thats what it is meant to be like.

[Graham]

Would brewing such a low gravity beer with that amount of sugar not make it taste incredibly watery?

I've never tried Mann's right enough so I don't know if thats what it is meant to be like.

Yes, it would, but most of the flavour and sweetness was contributed by priming sugars added at packaging. They are not really priming sugars as we would call them, used to produce condition, but are there to provide colour, flavour and sweetness. To provide body, should it be required, the primings would contain a high proportion of non-fermentables. Some types of caramel have a strong flavour too. Because these are added at bottling and then the bottles are immediately pasteurised, any fermentable sugars contributed by the primings do not get the chance to ferment, so will impart residual sweetness. We do not have the luxury (?) of pasteurisers, (Until Vossy and Aleman have run out of other things to invent), hence the saccharine in Dave Line's recipe.

As I said in a previous post, brown ales were merely coloured light ales and it was typical of light ales to have 25% sugar. Almost 33%, as given above, does seem excessive, but it was Watney's. All the "Big Six", Courage and the like, did similar things.

Although that is not the way I would produce a brown ale if it was included in my recipes, the Dave Line recipe does reflect the way it was actually made, as best he could. I don't know whether or not I admire him for that, but he certainly does not have my scruples (or is it censorship tendencies).

I do remember being mildly amused watching people, that to me at the time were old boys, mixing brown and mild, when the bottled brown was identical to the mild - exactly the same stuff, except that one was in a keg and the other was in a bottle, but the bottled cost more.

[Dazzer]

Would brewing such a low gravity beer with that amount of sugar not make it taste incredibly watery?

I've never tried Mann's right enough so I don't know if thats what it is meant to be like.

Yes, it would, but most of the flavour and sweetness was contributed by priming sugars added at packaging. They are not really priming sugars as we would call them, used to produce condition, but are there to provide colour, flavour and sweetness. To provide body, should it be required, the primings would contain a high proportion of non-fermentables. Some types of caramel have a strong flavour too. Because these are added at bottling and then the bottles are immediately pasteurised, any fermentable sugars contributed by the primings do not get the chance to ferment, so will impart residual sweetness. We do not have the luxury (?) of pasteurisers, (Until Vossy and Aleman have run out of other things to invent), hence the saccharine in Dave Line's recipe.

As I said in a previous post, brown ales were merely coloured light ales and it was typical of light ales to have 25% sugar. Almost 33%, as given above, does seem excessive, but it was Watney's. All the "Big Six", Courage and the like, did similar things.

Although that is not the way I would produce a brown ale if it was included in my recipes, the Dave Line recipe does reflect the way it was actually made, as best he could. I don't know whether or not I admire him for that, but he certainly does not have my scruples (or is it censorship tendencies).

I do remember being mildly amused watching people, that to me at the time were old boys, mixing brown and mild, when the bottled brown was identical to the mild - exactly the same stuff, except that one was in a keg and the other was in a bottle, but the bottled cost more.

Sorry Graham

I'm a newbe when it comes to brewing, What your saying is that i need to ferment the wort as normal, but when bottling i need to keep as much of the yeast out and add sweetner/sugar that won't ferment?

And one other thing,what are invert sugars?

Cheers

[Graham]

I'm a newbe when it comes to brewing, What your saying is that i need to ferment the wort as normal, but when bottling i need to keep as much of the yeast out and add sweetner/sugar that won't ferment?

If you are going to use the Dave Line recipe, remember that it is for fifteen litres for some odd reason, and that no original gravity is specified.
Just brew as normal; boil for one hour or more with the hops, ferment as usual. Replace the hop extract with Northdown hops (or whatever) so that you have a total of 45g of hops.

Your idea of boiling down wort until it is reduced and darkened is a good way of producing the caramel. It is exactly the same way that brewers of old used to colour porter 150 years ago. Otherwise, a convenient source of caramel is bottled gravy browning from a supermarket. However, I do find it hard to believe that 10 ml would have much effect in 15 litres.

The saccharine that Dave Line specifies is a non-fermentable sweetener and is used for that purpose, but again, 5 tablets to not seem very many.

Add the saccharine tablets to the fermenter when you pitch your yeast.

And one other thing,what are invert sugars?
Cheers

Invert sugar is the type of sugar that brewers use. Ordinary cane sugar is more or less the same, but use 15% less. (425grams)

The yeast you use isn't that important, except that you want one that will stick firmly to the bottom of the bottle. Safale-04 is supposed to be good at this. Do not use isinglass finings otherwise the yeast will not stick to the bottom of the bottle and you will find it difficult to pour.

You will need to prime the bottles - there is no chance of any condition developing without it.

A low gravity beer like this will be difficult to brew, and even more difficult to keep sound. Be very clean and when it is brewed and bottled, I wouldn't let it hang around for long.

[Dazzer]

Thanks for your advice Graham & Daab,

Cheers

[Stonechat]

Good luck with it Dazzer. I think that the lower alcohol beers are the hardest to do. Anyone that does a sub3.5% mild or boy's type bitter and manages to get it tasty has my total admiration.
Once you have done your Manns please post to let us know how it turned out.

[Dazzer]

Good luck with it Dazzer. I think that the lower alcohol beers are the hardest to do. Anyone that does a sub3.5% mild or boy's type bitter and manages to get it tasty has my total admiration.
Once you have done your Manns please post to let us know how it turned out.

Ok mate, to be honest i didnt think it was going to be any different then any other extract brew. But what Graham and Daab have said, and you i think i might of bitten off more than i can chew !!!

I think i might cheat and brew a stronger mild, but still boil down some of the wort to get a toffee taste? maybe try Hoddesdon Dark

[Stonechat]

Hi Dazzer, I did not intend to put you off doing a Mann's clone and am sorry if I did. Sometimes you have to give something like this a try and if not successful keep tweaking what you do until you get close.