History
In the 18th century, British brown ales were brewed to a variety of strengths, with gravities ranging from around 1.060º to 1.090º. These beers died out around 1800 as brewers moved away from using brown malt as a base. Pale malt, being cheaper because of its higher yield, was used as a base for all beers, including Porter and Stout.
The term "brown ale" was revived at the end of the 19th century when London brewer Mann introduced a beer with that name. However, the style only became widely brewed in the 1920s. The brown ales of this period were considerably stronger than most modern English versions. In 1926, Manns Brown Ale had a gravity of 1.043º and an ABV of around 4%. Whitbread Double Brown was even stronger, 1.054º and more than 5% ABV. The introduction of these beers coincided with a big increase in demand for bottled beer in the UK.
In the 1930s some breweries, such as Whitbread, introduced a second weaker and cheaper brown ale that was sometimes just a sweetened version of dark Mild. These beers had a gravity of around 1.037º.
After World War II, stronger brown ales, with the exception of a handful of examples from the northeast of England, mostly died out. The majority were in the range 1.030-1.035º, or around 3% ABV, much like Manns Brown Ale today.
North American brown ales trace their heritage to American home brewing adaptations of certain northern English beers, and the English influence on American Colonial Ales.
Read more about this topic: Brown Ale
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