Vesterbro Brown Ale
Mikkeller ApS

Bottle.

Clear mahogany, excessive foam for the style. If this is a brown ale. I guess it is whatever supposedly genial twist this pretentious brewery has come up with. Label lowers expectations as usual for these. Sends the message that they are so cool they do not need to even make the name clear. Like all brands about to die in a few years. No esthetic excuse either. Brown ale so make it... a brown mess. Probably looked better on a bright screen.

Nose is a subdued mess too. There is the nut, caramel and grain but it just does not interest. Herbal/piney hop aroma that does not add anything. This is not American (too wussy), or British (maltiness and hop aroma are not there) brown ale.

Taste converges the boredom to a naked taste of grain. And a yeasty bitterness. Thinnish.

Either this beer failed to execute an idea .. or rather I think the idea was not there. The yeastiness is probably an error. Hard to understand what the point was.

330ml bottle - more stupidly difficult to decipher label imagery and text - fuck off Mikel, or whatever your name is.

This beer pours a clear, dark orange-brick brown colour, with a teeming tower (natch) of puffy, creamy, and somewhat billowy off-white head, which leaves some complex disintegrating cloud pattern lace around the glass as it very slowly abates.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, a twinge of biscuity toffee, indistinct sugary nuts, nougat, bittersweet cocoa powder, a touch of real vanilla, and gentle leafy, earthy, and herbal noble hop bitters. The taste is bready and grainy pale malt, a lesser caramel sweetness, still heady generic nutty notes, more plain dime-store cocoa powder, a thankfully ethereal yeastiness, some burgeoning dark orchard fruitiness, and more tame weedy, floral, and herbal green hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly active in its palate-probing frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and mostly smooth, just (as usual) a bit of yeastiness getting in the way of our potential good time here. It finishes trending dry, the graininess sloughing off its sweetness, while the nutty and hoppy essences ramp up for a night out on the town.

Overall, this is certainly one of the better offerings of traditional styles to come out of the collaboration of Mikkeller and de Proef, as the yeast plays a relatively minor part, and the typical flavours come round to bear. Easy to drink, and even somewhat refreshing, I'm finding it rather hard to say.