Euforia
DuClaw Brewing Company

On tap -> Pint glass at Blue Grass Tavern in Baltimore, MD. My wife and I met some friends for Sunday brunch. I wasn't expecting this place to have anything decent as far as beer. To my surprise, the first this I see at the bar is two tap handles, this and Dale's Pale Ale. I've had Dale's a lot, but I'd never had this one. Plus, it's good to support local breweries!

A - Cloudy dark brownish red, white foamy head, webbed sticky lacing, little carb streams

S - Mildly sweet, toasted English muffin

T - Whoppers! This tastes just like malted milk balls. I happen to enjoy that candy, so this was very pleasing. Very malty and sticky sweet from the first taste through the middle. Some mild light roast coffee notes. This one finishes with some clean mildly bitter notes. As it opens up some mild spiced notes arrive, almost like toasted mild gingerbread.

M - Medium bodied. Not much else to it.

O - Easy to drink, but not quite session-able. I had two in this sitting, and enjoyed the first one far more than the second. Very sweet and great to pair with traditional American breakfast foods like eggs, ham, grits and other savory and salty items. I imagine that this would be a good dessert beer. I'd order this one again if I saw it.

Keep up the good work DuClaw!

 

The pour is dark brown with a tan head. The taste is caramel & roasted malt. Cheers! B

 

Clear brown, off-white head, decent retention and lacing
Smells like toffee, there is some toasted nut and hints of cocoa
Toffee, cocoa, caramel, and toasted nuts flavor
Medium-heavy bodied and appropriately carbonated
Not really my thing, but this is a very satisfying beer, bringing sweet flavors without being cloying

 

 

 

Very dark color, more like a stout. Absolutely no taste, certainly not anything like brown ale. Basically just carbonated brown water. Dry finish.

 

 

Appearance - Pours autumn brown with a khaki, finger width head. Good retention, resulting in a thin, consistent film across the top. Fair lacing, mostly consisting of small spots and some broken webbing.

Smell - Enticing aroma of toffee and some roasted nuts; the roast is almost on the cusp of some coffee character. Lesser caramel. Faint butter.

Taste - Nice flavor profile that starts with toffee before earthy, slightly roasty nuttiness comes into play. A hint of caramel and very faint chocolate. The finish is somewhat light, with some sweetness and light, lingering roast.

Mouthfeel - The beer loses me quite a bit in the mouthfeel. Slighty creamy initially, but then thins quickly, especially for a brown and with low carbonation. Watery finish.

Overall - Promising beer but could be a bit beefier, IMO. The light, watery finish isn't doing it for me. One of the lighter finishing browns I've had, in fact. A shame because the aroma and initial flavor are very nice. There's just a huge gap in the finish.

 

12 oz bottle. Pours brown with tall, long lasting, fluffy, off-white head and nice lacing. Aroma is of nutty malt, chocolate, vanilla, cacao, dark fruit, brown sugar and hint of hops. Body is medium and smooth. Taste is similar to aroma. Finish is long and semi-dry. On a sweet side but good overall.

Duclaw’s branding is horrible. All of their logos look like some kind of Czechoslovakian Hot Topic ripoff, the things that appeal only to depressed kids in the former Eastern Block who want to seem smart and edgy. You know that shirt worn by fat girls in middle school, the one that says “I you laugh because I’m different, I laugh because you’re all the same?” This is the beer version of that. Only misspelled.

Like, seriously, “euforia?” Who is that for?

That aside, it’s nice to see a brewery that includes a brown ale in their staple lineup. Browns are good.

This one is okay. Pours very hazy with a bit of an uneven hue—reminds me of my not-very-good homebrew.

Smells like cereal grain with some light nuttiness. Far from the delicacy of a good English brown, or the sweet smoothness of a good American one. But quaffable nonetheless.

Tastes like it smells: cereal malt, light toffee, light nuttiness, a finish of dry hops. Absolultely fine for a brewpub brown, but nothing to distinguish it from anything else.

12oz bottle to Guinness 20 oz glass.
Medium to dark amber.. little haze. One finger head quickly fades to flat off-white head. Smell is fairly faint of toffee.. malts and a whiff of caramel. The taste is of the nose, and is well balanced. There is a slight bit of carbonation, but not of bite quality. Overall, this is a good beer, but there is nothing worldly going on.

 

 

**
07/23/2016
Side by side Brown Ale tasting:

1. DuClaw x11 Mesquite Smoked Brown Ale
2. Rogue Hazelnut Nectar (4.01)
3. Clown Shoes Brown Angel (3.99)
4. Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale (3.42)
5. DuClaw Euforia
6. Voodoo Wynonna's Big Brown Ale
**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12 oz undated bottle served in a snifter. Revised using the less pleasing contents of a 12 oz can in January 2022.

Pours dark brown; clear with ruby highlights. Thin head soon reduces to a partial top coat and ring.

Aroma: roasted nuts and toffee with dark bread, but something like a tartness too and not nearly as pleasant as it should be.

Flavor: lots of toffee but about equally bitter and sweet.

Feel: Medium body and medium-light carbonation.

 

This is a cloudy dark brown with some translucency. The head (white) dissipates quickly. The flavour, though advertised as a toffee nut, there seems to be a whole lot more nut than toffee. The flavour is a whole lot of almonds, which is not really unpleasant but doesn't quite fit what I was looking for. The body is pleasant and the beer overall has a high drinkability.

 

 

Poured from a bottle into a pint glass.

OVERALL a nice and nutty English Brown Ale that's drinkable, enjoyable, and a little sweet.

LOOKS a deep ruby dark tea brown.
SMELLS like sweet leather, milky hazelnuts, caramel, and malts. A chocolate toffee smell.
TASTE follows the nose with an emphasis on the caramel notes and the introduction of a toffee middle and a toasted marshmallow finish.
MOUTHFEEL is fairly smooth with a medium body and lively carbonation at the swallow.