Northern Brown Ale
Olds College Teaching Brewery

16oz glass at the Underground in downtown Edmonton - an English brown ale produced in the Northern style.

This beer appears a clear, dark brown colour, with prominent cola highlights, and a thin cap of wispy and bubbly off-white head, which leaves some sparse island group lace around the glass as things slowly recede.

It smells of bready and biscuity caramel malt, a bit of free-range ashiness, subtle bittersweet cocoa powder, some oily bar-top nuttiness, faint day-old coffee grounds, and some tame earthy, musty, and floral noble hops. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, some berry-forward red fruitiness, white breakfast biscuits, faint medium chocolate wafers, ethereal iced coffee, plain nuts, and more understated earthy, herbal, and leafy green hoppiness.

The carbonation is pretty meek in its wan-seeming frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and generally smooth, with nothing really causing any sort of ruckus here. It finishes off-dry, the malt, fruity esters, and nutty cocoa presiding.

Overall - I'm not overly familiar with the difference between the Northern and Southern variations of English brown ales, so my insight may not be particularly useful in this instance. At any rate, this is essentially a malty, nutty, and biscuity brew, full stop.