Photo Gallery

5-GALLON ALL-GRAIN HOMEBREW RECIPE

THE CHARACTER

Edmund Hale has farmed the same sixty acres in the Cotswolds for thirty-five years. His father farmed it before him. His grandfather before that. Edmund doesn't say much — not because he has nothing to say, but because the land speaks for him. His Nut Brown Ale is the quietest beer in the Duffy & Ward lineup. Nutty, biscuity, caramel and toffee, with an earthiness that tastes genuinely like the Cotswold countryside after rain. It is a fireside beer. A Sunday evening beer. The beer you drink when the day is done and done well.

THE STYLE

Brown ale is one of England's oldest beer styles, with roots stretching back to the very beginnings of British brewing when all beers were brown — a function of the kilning technology of the time, which could not produce pale malt. The term "Nut Brown Ale" predates the modern style classifications by centuries, appearing in English literature and folk songs as far back as the 16th century — it refers to the deep brown color resembling a chestnut or hazelnut, and the nutty, toasty flavor profile. English brown ales generally fall into two substyles — the Northern English brown ale, typified by Newcastle, which is drier and lighter, and the Southern English brown ale, which is darker, sweeter, and more full-bodied. Edmund Hale's Nut Brown lives in the Northern tradition — nutty, toasty, balanced, gentle, and endlessly sessionable.