Old Brown Dog
Smuttynose Brewing Company

From a can. Pours a clear brown with little head. Smells of caramel malt and dark fruit. Tastes like it smells plus some sweetness. Medium bodied and smooth.

 

Clear reddish-brown, big tan head, good retention, lace like a black metal band's logo
Slight cocoa and toasted nuts, yeast driven fruit aromas
Tastes like it smells
Medium bodied and appropriately carbonated
Good for what it is

 

Draught pint at The Brass Tap here in Baltimore: Place holder 4a real re view

This beer boasts a beautiful dark copper color. Head is slight and offwhite. Beautiful nose of roasted malt. This beer is rich with toasty and sweet malt flavors without being cloying, Malt-hop balance is very good. This strikes me as an ale yeast version of a doppelbock. Very good.

The pour is mahogany brown colored. The taste is brown bread crust, mild hops, & toffee. Cheers! B

 

 

 

Poured into a 16 oz pint glass from tap at Red Robin (yummm) in Saratoga Springs. Pours light, opaque brown with no head. Served very cold - tried to wait for the beer to warm a bit to appreciate the tastes. Light toffee light desk with subtle chocolate. Not bad.

 

Nice, fun, great body. Easy to drink but with enough flavor to be interesting.

 

Poured form a 12oz brown bottle stamped 21183nnnnnn which I take to mean July 2nd of this year. (Old brewerey, old dating strategy). Poured at fridge temp to a Nonic.
A beautiful biege head sits above a brown-gold body that reminds me of root beer. Head fades but laces well.
Aroma is muted musty and malty.
Taste is similar with a hint of caramel.
Overall, not as good I remember from years ago, but not sure how good my tast memory is.

Poured into an imperial pint nonic. A normal pour produces a light fluffy off white/brown head that sticks around for a while and recedes to a cap of foam that stays till the end leaving nice lacing with each sip. The smell is faint but pleasant
with malt and maybe a little chocolate. The taste is mild, very slightly sweet with a little roast that lingers in the after taste. The mouth feel is light to medium body with a well matched level of carbonation. Overall, I like this beer, it's an easy drinker with a 6.5% ABV. It has a solid malt backbone, but isn't as roasty as other examples of the style.

 

Its brown, but not a dark brown, not even as dark as a cola soft drink. It's also very bright and shiny, but not translucent. The off-white head is modest and enduring. Prerequisite to making these observations, two twelve ounce cans were emptied into a clear glass liter mug. A sweet malty aroma also emanates. Although obviously well carbonated, it drinks a bit flat because it is smoother than it looks like it would be. Oddly, it's also very light in body. The taste is malty sweet with just enough hop bite to make it work. There's only a little glass lacing and only a little taste of the 6.5% ABV. The best Browns have a little more earthiness than this, which helps with the sweetness of the malt. It may not be among the best in its style, but it is good and worth the try.

Sampled July 2, 2021 from a can in pint glass. Can had a brewed date of 5/25/21 stamped on it.

Appearance: Dark amber color. Tan head was about 2 fingers thick, and it lasted about a minute and resulted in a thin cover. There was a little lacing left on the glass.

Smell: Strong roasted malt aromas, with some smell of sweet chocolate.

Taste: Medium-bodied with a balance of malt, coffee, and chocolate flavors, with some hop bitterness for added dimension. The combination makes it more enjoyable than many other brown ales.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, but very smooth, almost creamy.

Overall: A good brown ale. Best if you enjoy a combination of malt, coffee, chocolate, and hops flavor influences. The label lists 6.5% alcohol, and it does taste like it.

June 2021. Fresh bottle poured into tulip glass. Clear dark chestnut color with an onch of white foam that slowly fades to a very thin ring.
Pleasant nose of roasted malt, brown bread, slightly earthy.
Very malty on the palate, quite nutty and much hoppier than a British brown, with a persistent maple sweetness.
Nice easy drinking beer but a little too sweet. The extra hoppiness is typical of American browns but ultimately lacks the sublety and cohesion of the best British brown ales.

From a 12oz can, dated 03/29/21. Served in a tulip.

Pours a warm, translucent, burnt caramel colour with an honest finger of soft and sudsy beige foam. Retention is quite good, leaving a bubbly cap, a creamy collar, and a tattered curtain of foamy lacing. Looks really nice.

Aroma, however, is disappointingly faint. Malty, with butterscotch and damp hay.

Taste is somewhat thin but there’s toasted bread crust and caramelized cane sugar, nuts and corn. Earthy/dirty and only very mildly sweet, with a grassy/ashy, bitterness and a slight bile-like, vomitous aftertaste.

Feel is slick and soapy, medium-light bodied with a prickly, aggressive, almost fizzy level of carbonation.

How have I not reviewed this before now? At any rate, I think this is not the beer it once was. Although it is rather thin, in terms of aroma, taste and mouthfeel, it was still enjoyable enough until I’d identified the vomitous aftertaste. I still finished the can, because I am, after all, a trooper, but I’ll pawn the remaining two cans from the variety pack off on my friend Bob.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Translucent medium chestnut-brown , with one finger of tan head.

Smell is moderate nutty aroma (crushed walnut, mostly), slight caramel, and brown bread.

Taste close to aroma, but drier, with an additional malt-ball-but-not-sweet flavor. Moderate bitterness.

Feel is medium , slightly slick, slightly watery initially, with moderate very fine carbonation tingle.

Overall, a nice, well-balanced, basic beer, well-done.

 

Pours medium brown with an off-white head. It smells of dark bread and coffee. The taste is nutty and a bit sweet, like crackers and caramel with a mildly bitter finish. It hides its abv very well and is easy to drink. Nothing is overpowering, just well-balanced.

 

 

I've enjoyed this Ale over a period of years but have never formally rated it before. I agree with the Notes to this product that it is a "classic example of an American Brown Ale". It was the product that first developed a personal enthusiasm in me for Brown Ales in general and I haven't yet come across a better example. It became less available in recent years on the retail shelves in my area but now seems to have returned on a more regular basis in its usual 12 oz. can format. Thus, Smuttynose once again occupies a regular spot in my refrigerator with both Old Brown Dog and its better-known Finest Kind IPA.

 

Consumed November 13, 2016. Alright you know the line: brown ale pours well, light brown here, liquid caramel. 1/4" much lighter color brown head. Its thicker and darker by far compared to Newcastle.

Brown malt aroma, earthy dark caramel bread, mild cocoa like note, a similar mild hop influence.

Taste actually pushed a mixture of citrus rind and brown malt caramel. Its not ipa level hopping territory, but there are some aspects of that here. Assertions of it being strongly hopped are overblown if you don't qualify "for style" when you repeat the commercial tug job line. A little bit of nuttiness in the mouthfeel. Leans more bitter than it does sweet.

It drinks pretty easy, there are no off flavors. Surprised to see this style of beer rated so highly. I think this brown ale checks all the boxes and is an easy beer to pick up for someone who likes brown ales.

Bottled 12/31/19

I’ve seen this one around for so long, I just had to grab it. I’m a sucker for a good brown so I tend to pick up any that I can find

Pours a clear light brown/copper with just a cap of khaki colored head that fades to nothing quick and leaves no lacing at all

Aromas of big coffee, caramel malt, citrus hops, and just a touch of floral spice

This one is quite hop forward in the taste for a brown and I’m all about it! Notes of chocolate and dark fruit work well with bitter coffee and hops. A bit more malt character would work here, but this is still good

Pretty light body here with some tingly carbonation, this finishes dry and bitter

Quite an interesting example of a brown, very American for sure, and drinks a whole lot lighter than the abv