Hot Saw India Brown Ale
Fernie Brewing Co.

 

Bottle to mug, the appearance was a stiff dark brown color with a finger's worth of white foamy head. Sustained nicely to dissipate and leave just a touch of sliding lace.
The aroma had some earthy to spicy and bitter citrusy, piney and sprucy-like hops over top of a nice smooth caramel/toffee backbone. Light nuts, charcoal/ash, and floral bits persuade the malts to subside further to the backbone. Light tobacco at the very end.
The flavor keys in on the earthy, piney and citrusy hops - spicy and bitter and kicking the sweetness a bit further back. Aftertaste is biting bringing in the spicy to piney contour all up in there.
The mouthfeel was about medium bodied with a sipping quality about it. Carbonation felt fine, not distracting, and full. ABV felt as projected by the brewer.
Overall, now that's a bit different for an American styled Brown ale, if the beer was darker, I'd say this would be an American Black Ale/CDA. I'd have this one again, but definitely need some water by my side to enjoy this "palate wrecker" of a beer.

 

Tasting notes: Classic "Cascadian dark ale", equal parts porter, American brown, and American pale with added hops. Very creamy, resilient head. The hops are "mainly" Willamette, Ahtanum, and Chinook, according to a blog post from the brewery. Yep ... There's a lot of earthy spice, a little spruce/pine, some flower shop, assorted and sundry resins. Minimal citrus. Great malt backbone weighted towards the nut and brown bread realms, with a whiff of cafe mocha. Do not go into this expected the en vogue fruity hop flavors. Rather thick and oily, with a slick, creamy mouthfeel. This is dark, resinous, earthy, recalling tobacco and bitter herb rather than anything truly tropical. Do expect some rich malt complexity.

 

 

Appearance - Pours a dark copper brown with three finger of dense creamy tan head.

Smell - bready caramalts, cocoa, nutty aromas, leafy hops, hint of earthy yeast.

Taste - Bready caramalts start this off followed by the cocoa then goes into a slight zippy leafy hop then goes into the nuttiness and hint of earthy yeast.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with moderate carbonation. Finishes off dry with the malts and cocoa lingering.

Overall - A pleasant brown that is quite easy to drink. I was hoping for more of the nuttiness to come through but the hops are there with the malts as the star of the show. Good to see another seasonal from Fernie.

 

This is a really nice looking beer! I was really pleased to find this in my local bottle shop. It pours with a lovely tan head that hangs around for added froth. The nose is definitely hop and malt. This is a tasty, moderately hopped brown ale. Perhaps not exactly what I was expecting, but darn pleasant nonetheless. FBC keeps getting better and better!

650ml bottle - cool name for a beer named after the logging industry.

This beer pours a clear, dark bronzed amber colour, with three fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly beige head, which leaves some sudsy table top cloud lace around the glass as it slowly sinks out of sight.

It smells of bready caramel malt, an oily nuttiness, bittersweet cocoa, earthy yeast, and leafy, herbal, and kind of minty hops. The taste is more grainy, bready caramel malt, toasted bar-top nuts, a still prevalent sassy yeastiness, subdued dark chocolate, and tame citrusy, leafy, and wintergreen-adjacent hops.

The carbonation is adequate in its alternating fizzy and frothy goings-on, the body a decent medium weight, and generally smooth, a slight pithiness arising soon after dropping out of the fridge temperature zone. It finishes off-dry, the toasty caramel and chocolate persisting, but neither in great amounts, while the zesty, herbal, and somewhat metallic hops frolic about. No real evidence of the 7% ABV makes itself plainly known.

A pleasant enough brown ale, amped up with some extra hops and extra booze. Since the expected warming does well to keep itself in the darkest shadows, let us discuss the hops - my guess is a strong Polaris contingent, because, first, that minty, leafy thing, and second, it seems to be the hop du jour among yer average British Columbian craft brewer of late. Not exactly what I'd prefer an IBA (India Brown Ale) to be - bring on the big 'C' hoppiness, already - but worthy of a go nonetheless.