Brew Day: Maesters Mahogony - An Ale from the Seven Kingdoms

The Vorpbrew Rooster dressed as a maester.
Potential label artwork.

I hate brown ales.  Just have never learned to like them.  So here I am this weekend brewing a brown ale.  Why? 

I get bored of brewing the same type of beer over and over.  If it was up to me, I would just brew stouts, IPA's and sours.  All day everyday. But I want to learn more about brewing.  Sometimes that means you gotta step outside of what is comfortable and brew something new. 

I asked a friend at work what kind of beer he liked. 

"Newscastle Brown". 

Well, OK then. "I'll brew one for you" 

Since I have said that we have learned that we both liked Game of Thrones.  He is a huge GoT nerd.  I am just learning.  He is the Maester and I am the Samwell in this story.

So I went to the Citadel to learn how to brew a proper brown in the Newcastle tradition.  I learned that it is mixed from old ale and new amber ale to create the Brown Ale we all know.

I planned to do this in the proper tradition but I thought that I had to make it my own.  I had to make it a bit more American while retaining some of those traditional English flavors.

I brewed up a brown ale that I am calling the Maester's Mahogony - An Ale from the Seven Kingdoms.  My recipe was a mix between Newcastle and Moosedrool, the American Brown Ale that gets the most attention, and a light stout.

All of my malts where from England, I used English yeast and added a few more ounces of black patent (for that stout twist - along with some brown sugar) and hopped the beer with American hops with English ancestry.

It's currently bubbling away in the primary fermentor and I can only wonder if any of the Game of Thrones characters would like to have a pint of this ale once its done.