Smoked Maple Bacon Brown Ale
Brown Beard Brewing Co.

unique sounding beer, they say its actually made with meat, uncommon and strange. so many smoked beers in here in the early going, which i dig, but i wish the overall quality in this place was a little higher, we werent too stoked on anything on our recent visit there. this is an odd one, not fatty or greasy, but it definitely has bacon character in aroma and flavor, rich to me and smoke forward, nutty european smoked malt in the nose too, but again a weird and problematic fermentation profile that breaks down a lot of the good for me, and here the idea is leagues cooler than the execution, a shame. the maple seems a little forced and it makes this quite sweet to me, much as i am a maple guy, i dont love what it does with whatever this bacon element is. the smoke is harsh and acrid in the flavor, some light cocoa malt is there but theres really not enough for this to have any balance, its all smoke, light hazelnut, dry baking chocolate, and even black tea, but an intense meaty almost beef jerky thing on the palate is basically permanent, and there is both sweetness and sharpness in texture. its heavy in the mouth and in the belly, not particularly well carbonated, and the maple and smoke both linger forever. im not going to accuse these guys of trying to do to much and tell them to just make a decent brown ale before they stab at something like this because its way off, because the truth is i appreciate the effort and it being unique, but this is not very good overall, and i have some real concerns about their ability to execute after three pretty rough beers last time in. credit for doing something weird i guess, is there really meat in here? seems possible, but i want this to be a lot better than it is...

Taster at brewery. Dark, clear brown, thin head, solid lacing. Soft maple aroma, not overly sweet, like maple syrup on buttered pancakes. Taste brings in the lightly toasted malts, nutty flavors with a bit of bitterness, and sweet maple.