American Brown Ale.

What happens when you clear the cupboard and try to make beer of it.

If you were baking a cake, you'd probably get out the recipe and read it through to make sure you had all the ingredients you needed before starting to bake. Well, I'm usually that way and more so when brewing, but this time I just winged it, thinking that I had more than enough of everything on hand to have the goods there when needed.
Uh, don't brew this way. It's too stressful, and you may find, as I did, that some of your ingredients ain't up to snuff when you need to be snuffin'.

Shooting for an OG of 1048-1052 / FG: 1004-1008:

* 1 lb. Oatmeal
* 1 bag Doc's Cellar Porter Grains
* 2 lbs Light dry extract (1.5 lbs were boiled in later)
* 4.4 lbs dark liquid extract
* 3 lbs light clover honey
* 2 oz. Hallertauer hops (3.5)
* 2 oz. Cascade hops (7.8)
* 1 old Munton's, 1 old Nottingham packets of dry yeast, which was old stuff that was lying around in the garage. But hey, I figured, if Munton doesn't get after it, Nottingham will.

Boil (Day 1):
Began steeping Grains and Oatmeal in gauze sack from 120° to 180. Poured in the liquid extract at 180°. Added the dry extract, and waited for a real boil (17 mins)
15 mins after a real boil happened, bagged in 1 oz of the Hallertauer.
30 mins after; added the second oz of the Hallertauer, and 1 oz of the Cascade.
45 mins after; stirred in the honey, and popped in the wort chiller.
60 mins after; put in the last oz of finishing Cascade.
The Early Prognostication: I think that it's gonna feel a little underhopped.

Chilled to 80°, pitched the prepped yeast. OG: 1030. I had 3 corneys, one with 4 gallons, one with about 3 gallons, and a last with the bottom-of-the-boil 3 gallons. I was figuring that this last one might turn out either bitter, or the best of the three if the other two seemed underhopped.

Stuck Fermentation (Day 3):
The kicker: The old yeast was old yeast, and dead. That night, no activity. The next day, the yeast had not taken off! I freaked and chilled down to 30°, and called everyone looking for a back up, and ended up getting some from Darin at Lengthwise Brewing.
Since I was a little low on the OG, I boiled up a kettle of water and added 1.5 lbs of dry extract to about 4 gallons of water. This, with a little pouring from corney to corney, gave me about 4 gallons in 3 corneys. All three have an equal mix, equal OG at 1038 and equal head space now, and should end up tasting exactly the same.

Racking (Day 16)::
Sucked yeast off the bottoms of the corneys. Gravity is at 1006 @ 44°. Tasted like a really underhopped, really young beer. Looking good, will wait a full month before taking another sip and carbonating hard.

Carbonation (Day 28):
Okay, so I couldn't wait. I'm carbonating two of the corneys at 30 lbs pressure at 48°....
Kept em on it until Wednesday, when I switched over to the last one and ran pressure on it until Saturday.

End of Conditioning (Day 58):
Took a few tastes from two of the corneys, they're a little thin (for me -- but then, they were supposed to be) and just a little young. I need a little practice in dialing in the carbonation levels. Overcarbonated a bit, but not a problem. And yeah, it feels a little underhopped.

3 months later, this turned out to be a very good brew; smooth and amber, dark with a light body. It just took the honey an extra month to kick in. The anemic hopping turned out to be characteristically American Brown. Whaddya know.