Brown Ale
Taps Fish House & Brewery

 

 

 

On-tap at Taps

A: The pour is a dark amber color, that one could certainly call brown, with a creamy off-white head.

S: A slight acidity to the nose along with some nuttiness. However, there isn't as much toffee and sweet malt as I would normally expect from the style.

T: Good nuttiness and plenty of sweet malt and toffee on the flavor. The acidity that I picked up in the nose manifests itself as a slight, underlying tartness on the flavor.

M: The body is medium with a carbonation that might be a little aggressive for this kind of beer.

D: I was able to take this beer down, but it wasn't really a pleasure to do so. Not offensive, just not exceptionally good.

this came poured a clear semi-dark brown. It reeked of chocolate malt and that was perfectly fine with me. Overall fairly light, although body was towards medium-light, but went down pretty easy. Tasty, again caramel and chocolate. Maybe it's just a pretty good brown ale, or maybe I'm coming around to this style more lately as I've liked the last few brown ales I've come across. Another impressive beer from TAPS.

Taster glass, consumed 03/06/08.

The beer is a clear brown with a thin skin of foam.

Vague nutty aroma.

Classic brown ale flavor (nuts and caramel - think a more flavorful Newcastle) with marked astringency and spiciness at the end.

Quite drinkable. Well done.

Sampled this afternoon at the Corona location, won a gold medal at the 2003 Los Angeles County fair

A-Medium brown with some darker highlights, quarter inch light tan head, some retention, no real lacing

S-Brown sugar, chocolate, lots of malt, roastiness, toffee, and lots of caramel

T-Starts off with sweet malt and sugar, fades to a dry caramel texture, then a big roasty nut flavor in the aftertaste, not much hops to balance out the overwhelming malt, chewy at times with biscuit-like malty accents, a little too sweet once it warmed

M-Nutty and creamy mouthfeel, lots of carbonation, thin to medium body, taste did not last long

D-Could drink a pint or two but taste would get, low alcohol percentage, not very filling

Not a big fan of this beer style and this did not help that any, would not drink this again, listed at 5.3% ABV, worth sampling to see for yourself

Apperance: The look of this beer was helped a lot by the fact that it was on the hand pump from the cask. It was served with a creamy tan head as expected from a hand pump. The beer had a brownish red color that was mildly cloudy. But even though it was from the hand pump the head did not last nearly as long as I expected. Decent, but not excellent.

Smell: Big malty aroma with some sweet roast scent.

Taste: Tangy and sweet with a rich malt backbone. Some nut flavors with caramel and toffee sweetness. The flavor weakens at the end with a very watery ending. It doesn't leave much to chew on as the texture would suggest.

Mouthfeel: Very nice and creamy courtesy of the hand pump. Otherwise it is an average, medium bodied beer.

Drinkabilty: The flavor was rather disappointing. The best thing this beer had going for it was the look and the texture from the handpump.

Part of Taps' regularly rotating offerings, the Brown Ale replaced their Pumpkin Spice Ale two hours before I arrived towing two empty growlers. The Brown Ale was available on-tap and as their weekly cask offering.
Served at nearly room temp, the Brown Ale had an opaque dark brown color with only a thin ring of a head. The smell was of grainy malts and caramel plus a light butterscotch note. The butterscotch comes across even more strongly in the taste. The taste was quite sweet with some toffee and hints of nuts up front before the buttery flavor asserts itself across the tongue. Virtually no hops flavor was detected. The feel was medium-bodied, slick, and smooth.
Overall, I wasn't all that taken with this beer. The diacetyl aspect was a bit too strong and contributed a lot to lower the drinkability of this brown ale.