Nøgne Ø Imperial Brown Ale

You don't often see Imperial Brown ales, which is a bit of a shame in my book.

Then again, this one tips in at 7.5% which is not really that much higher than others you'd call a standard brown. In this case, it's more a style guide than a marker of potency.

It's certainly darker than normal - I have seen (admittedly disappointing) porters lighter than this. Nice tan bonce on it too. Taste and aroma are more or less what you'd expect I suppose .. or what you'd hope for. It's got a lasting coffee character throughout the mouthful, and delivers toasty roasty fun all over the place. There is a sense of porter in the taste as well to be honest, just in the way the mouthfeel, carb and alcohol are delivered but I think it's squarely in style.

In the space this occupies, it competes with a bunch of imperial stouts and the like as well but this holds its own as something unique and pleasant, if not revolutionary. Recommended. 7.5

Bear Republic Pete Brown Tribute Ale

Big bodied brown here, gives the impression of more than its stated 6.5%.

Its dark heavy brown-amber body pumps out a slightly too-sweet nose that made me fear a bit for the balance of the beer, but first impression is not too bad. Nutty, chocolatey sort of rich brown character, and flavoursome.

At this sort of low % I like a US Brown to be sessionable - ie either hoppy (to an extent) or dry enough so that you can send it back with efficiency. This beer's a bit too sweet for that and gets cloying quite quickly. Not bad beer, but not quite to my taste either. 7.0

Brooklyn Brown Ale

Pleasing sort of mahogany brown hue both bottle and glass. Clear but nice. Not the muddy sort. Unapologetically brown. I like.

Thin white meniscus of head only, but lovely aroma of big malts means it actually smells like a big alc beer just due to the depth of thick tendrils of smell. It's almost barleywine-ish in complexity and I'm surprised it's just at the 5.6% abv.

Yumm.. yep this doesn't disappoint, it's nice and full, great lasting ground coffee characteristics intertwined with caramel notes, what a delicious experience of a beer. Roasty and flavoursome, lasting, massive taste and staying power in spades.

Perhaps not a session brown as such - although it's certainly not obtrusive. But what a great introduction to the unknown beauty of browns for the uninitiated. Could easily be upped a bit on the alcohol front for a different experience again (is there an imperial version? If not, there should be). 8.0

8 Wired Rewired Brown Ale

First consumed with the staff of the St Kilda Local Taphouse at around 2am in the morning, after a night on many fine premium craft beers, but for some reason I just don't have a great recollection of the properties of this drop from that time. Weird.

The bottle goes on about brown ales being a style that's been both neglected, and used by "the mass brewing companies .. for their most unattractive products". The first point I agree with, the second .. well a quick search of my memory banks at least yields only UK macro producers even attempting this style at all. Brown ales to Aus producers at least are as untouched as barley wines.. perhaps there's a good reason for that.
Lovely pour this - initially gives the impression the head might be a bit fleeting but instead it hangs around nicely, lacing stickily to the side of the glass. It's the colour of dark mahogany, with a tan top.

Yum. This beer's just 5.7% but it's a good strong mouthful of flavour. It's bitter up front for a brown, but this wash of bitterness is soon overtaken by smooth nuttiness from the midsection. Bit of toffee here too before it washes away with a little lingering bitterness.

What's not to love? Really well balanced, interesting, and above all compelling beer that should be appealing to all, brown ale fan or not. Delicious. 8.5

2 Brothers Growler American Brown Ale

Inspired by their recent collabeeration with Feral, we were quite looking forward to this one.

And for once our confidence was not misplaced as 2 Brothers have delivered a very pleasing brown ale here with a lot of character and complexity. Looking forward to trying the rest of their range given a chance now.. could be yet another strong Victorian producer to add to the crowd.

Shame about the confusing choice of title though - whoever heard of drinking a growler from a squealer, or from a bottle for that matter?

Dark body and tan head good to look at, dead brown dry but floral nose. It's pretty expressive from early on and doesn't let up. The big biscuit and buttery malt flavours that give this one a nice sense of presence and permanence for its 4.7%. Enjoyed this beer and would drink again in a flash. 7.5

Eagle Bay Single Batch American Brown Ale

Woohoo, finally Eagle Bay beer to take home and enjoy (without the drive to Dunsborough).

Everybody's happy. And why wouldn't you be with 2L of highly drinkable, if not earth-shattering, American Brown Ale?

This beer is Eagle Bay's most recent in an ongoing line of single batches, and is probably up there with their best so far (save for the stout.. man, that stout was awesome).

It looks good in the glass, nice hue on the body and head, and emanates a pretty simple smell of dry coffee, slight hops, and dry caramel. Taste delivers a similar palate of flavours, along with lingering biscuit, all of which comes across quite light and with restrained sweetness.

Again, this was not a beer for those hoping to spend an evening with one glass, an interrogation spotlight, and a chair by the fire. As a quaffer though along with some food and good friends? Wonderful. 7.5

HeBrew Messiah Bold

These guys are pretty tied to the whole Jewish beers shtick, with much punning and merriness throughout the labeling.

Lucky for us they also make pretty good beer, as evidenced by their first effort.

This is labeled as bold but it is in many ways a very pleasant and easygoing beer. It pours quite dark with a thin tan layer of foam and produces a gentle nose of dark roast and predominately sweet caramel.

Taste-wise it's not as sweet as you've come to fear and in fact quite a light mouthfeel. Roast light coffee is the primary driver before it ends with a similarly light nutty finish. I feel like it vaguely, just vaguely, references its big brother somewhere in there.

It's pretty good and very drinkable this - just lacking some of the depth or breadth of flavour that you might expect from a 'bold' brown ale. I expect it's pretty sessionable too but if you're after a lounging contemplative flavoursome brown, look elsewhere. 6.5

Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar Ale

I came into this one with no real preconceptions but one whiff of the bottle and you're in no doubt as to what you're getting yourself in for.

Nuts. Hazelnuts. HAZELNUTS. Slightly disappointed with the lack of head but it could be the squealer.

Taste is pretty incredible - like some sort of hazelnut smoothy made from what is only beer if you are paying attention. Through the mouthfeel I kept expecting an edge of sort of metallic ground hops to come through and crash the smooth experience, but it's kept beautifully restrained with nuts and slight vanilla. This comes across as massively drinkable and would be a treat with any number of dessert foods too.

Sure enough it does have hazelnut extract added, it would seem impossible to achieve this traditionally even with the battallion of malts and crystal malts they've put in this one.

I'm torn as to how much of a gimmick this is and how much staying power it would have if you had easy access to it over time. Still, I'm not against it in the slightest. Purists be damned, this is unarguably bloody tasty beer and one of the best 'converting people to craft beer' weapons encountered to date. 8.5

Feral & 2 Brothers Collaborator 2012

I must admit I bought this one almost entirely based on the Feral reputation but happily the gambit payed off.

It's a brown ale but not typical to the style, delivering if anything a brown version of the stalwart hop hog. This is a pretty interesting experience with its lush green herbal notes first up, then more typical caramel brown ale performance in the back half with nice nuttiness. It's in some ways a clash of styles as the grassiness doesn't really meld with that dark finish, but there's not a great deal of jarring in the experience - it's more an pleasingly docile, intellectual manticore than a misguided attempt at a frankenstein.

My feeling is if you were really after a brown ale, this might not scratch your itch. Taken on its own merits though it seems a massively drinkable beer and another interesting take on a style. 8.0

Cavalier Brown Ale

Part two of my strictly journalistic mission to the Wayside Inn.

This was matched with the pulled pork sandwich (again great) - nice idea, but the beer itself was just a little bit short of the job in the end.

The head on this is a little light and fizzy, agitating unsettled beneath the blanket surface. It's a really excellent nose full of roasty coffee notes, chicory and an edge of chocolate, putting me in mind of fresh chocolate covered coffee beans. It's the taste where it disappointed.. this beer is completely without the body that's expected, nay required, of this style. It resembled more a light watered Japanese ice coffee with chicory than a typical malty cakelike brown. It's not empty as such and the roast flavours do get through, just.. but it all just felt a bit pale and removed, which was a genuinely saddening experience exacerbated, if anything, by the promising aroma.

The reason for this became apparent when chatting to a Good Beer Week staffer who'd been to Cavalier earlier that week to find them working on this batch of brown. They filtered it. Filtered it.

I'm more confused than angry. Devo'd. 5.5

Pretty Things Saint Botolph's Town

From one big brown to another - in taste at least.

For this is in fact only 6% abv, a fact belied by its authoritative flavour profile. Quite a bold beer this, tastes authentic somehow, speaks of coffee, slight roast, bit of booze, nuts, all those good things you like in a brown. The caramel aspect is not dominant and I find that rewarding.

The styling of this brewer is intriguing. If they can keep backing it up with thoughtful, quality beers like this I'll keep coming back.

I am glad I did not get the pipsqueak glass on the right. 7.5

Moon Dog Henry Ford's Girthsome Fjord

This beer is bloody fizzy.. odd as the bottle was sedate. Nice dark solid brown colour though.

Wow. You can tell from the aroma you're in for something definite here. It might be good, it might be terrible, but it will leave you in no doubt about what it's trying to say. According to the bottle there's six types of malt, six types of hops, and three types of yeast in this and they positively clamour for attention here.

Burnt oolong, earthy hops, chocolate roast .. sort of a really hoppy, really roasty, really burnt, porter brown ale. Worth trying for any beer nut but maybe not easy drinking as such. Oh and did I mention (notice?) it's 8.1% ABV? Mental as anything. I like it. 7.5 8.0

Newcastle Brown Ale

Right on the cutting edge of craft brewing technology, this blog, what with reviewing a mass produced commonly available ale seemingly brewed by Heineken and such like.

Took me a moment to work out what was wrong with this photo, but indeed the bottle is totally clear. Not sure how that works? Beer is pretty damn brown though, bit more fizzy than I was expecting, very low head that evaporates instantly. Smells mostly of bittering hops. Oh boy.

The taste has a little bit more going for it, there's notes of caramel and very slight nut under a pretty drinkable lid. Still slightly too fizzy, bit aggressive early for my liking particularly for this style. Bit of bitterness but it's all  a bit characterless and watery.

A check of the label and yes it contains glucose syrup, caramel, and carbon dioxide. Still, as these things go, I've had far worse. 4.0

Mikkeller Jackie Brown

Mikkeller town once more. I'm putting the place for these as Denmark but it's a bit laughable given his strategy of gypsy world beer domination.

What the hey I'm just gonna copypaste the description I found:

Mikkellers tribute to the foul-mouthed stewardess Jackie Brown from Quentin Tarantino’s movie of the same name. It’s a roasty, chocolaty brown ale with hints of coffee and licorice. Being a Mikkeller brew the malts are inevitably complimented by a great amount of hop bitterness, aroma and flavour.

That's pretty much spot on for mine. This is strongly, offputtingly brown, but agreeable complex while maintaining a lovely drinkability due to the bitterness. Great stuff. Want more as soon as possible. 8.0

Baird Brewing Angry Boy Brown Ale

And so we came to the first of our four beers from Baird Brewing Company, all the way from Shizuoka.

The bottle art on these beers is off the hook.. top work indeed. Though my overall expectations weren't that high given pretty mixed past experience with both Japanese beers, and with brown ales.

The Japanese description on the bottle suggested this beer was 'hiding an angry edge' and that it was best for days when you were a little angry yourself. We certainly found the nose on it made us a bit angry.. not the best entry to a beer. Head also dissipated quite quickly though this is perhaps permissable given the distance travelled to get to us.

The beer itself however was convivial if anything. I didn't feel enraged in the slightest by anything other than the misleading packaging. In fact, the conversation I had with this drop encouraged me to relax, think a moment, breath, count to 10, and not sweat the small stuff. I felt calmed. Quite a mellow characteristic throughout, tailing to a buttered toast like finish. No caramel / toffee here: pleasing.

It's a one-note sort of beer but pleasant enough to deserve a 7.0 and my interest to try it again as the best brown ale I've had to date (this is a limited field). Nic called a 6.0 and a reasonably auspicious start to Baird.