The nuttiness is a malt derived thing, generally. They usually don't have nuts in them.

 

You might want to try:

Brown Malt (found under United Kingdom Brown on the recipe editor), and Special Roast.

 

You ever put the recipe together, SHB? I'm assuming that you weren't yanking our chain - if you didn't know different, it would be a natural thing to figure that NBA would have Ns in it. If you WERE yanking our chain, my answer can only be Deez. Who knows; maybe somebody does have a genuine NBA recipe. I think you'd want to sanitize them though - they can get pretty smelly.

 

As silly as this sounds, I did come across Pietra a couple of years ago on holiday in the med. They mash with chestnut flour.

Professional reviewers scoff at it, but I quite like it - reminded me of the richer English ales back home.

 

JAMC - that is flat-out strange. It's actually a chestnut lager. They mash the nuts (and we all know how painful that can be) - I wonder if they get significant fermentables out of it. Corsican beer - who knew.

 

I think chestnuts are unique in the sense that the majority of their mass is made up of sugars instead of fats. I'm not sure what kind of sugar or if they're even fermentable, but you can sort of see how it would work. Even if they aren't fermentable they would contribute to the body and mouthfeel.

Still - don't think I'll be mashing nuts any time soon...

 

I would think the nuts oils wouild kill head retention...