Thoughts on Hoppy Brown Ales

Present-day tastes and expectations don't necessarily follow from historical brewing practice. http://www.prettythingsbeertoday.com/wp/our-beers/once-upon-a-time/once-upon-a-time-eip/

Note the 93 IBUs.

 

Rogue hazelnut is how a Brown should taste. Cali craft oak town is my favorite, if you can get a chance to try it, you'll love it too. Save the hops for the Pales.

 

Rogue makes a lot of bad beers but the Rogue Hazelnut Brown is what you are looking for. I've tried 10's of brown beers and this is still the best.

 

I prefer my brown ales to be what they are supposed to be - nice and malty. Hops should be imperceptible in any brown ale

 

I personally think India brown ales are quite awesome, so I wish there was a better selection of them.

 

I haven't given this much thought, and I probably like them both. I'm a big fan of the Mountain Ale from The Shed, Brown Angel from Clown Shoes, Ellies Brown from Avery, Peak Organic's Brown, and my favorite may be Wheeler's Brown from Cody.

I don't think I would want a brown to be hop dominated, as Arrogant Bastard is...but I do think they can be there to a much greater extent than in say, Newcastle. I loved the old Pete's Wicked. The Mountain Ale is probably the closest to it.

 

In general, I'm not a big fan of malty beers---too sweet---although I'll have one on occasion, and I thought Bell's Best Brown Ale was pretty good. I don't remember it being overly hoppy.

However, I agree with others that a beer should be true to the style or otherwise be noted by the brewer, as in "This is our hopped-up take on a brown ale..." Imagine the outraged thread if a brewer decided to make a malty sweet IPA without informing consumers.

That's why I always ask for a taste if I'm intrigued by a beer I'm not familiar with.

 

What, hazelnut flavoured?

 

I admit that I liked smuttynose durty but I would not buy it again. It did grow tiresome after a while. Now Old Brown dog . . . there's a nice brown ale.

 

Not a fan. When I reach for a brown ale I'm doing it precisely because I want very little hop presence.

 

I'm a big fan of hoppy brown ales when they are done well. I loved Stone's more brown than black IPA and really loved the short batch series of Durty. The mass release of durty wasn't done as well. But I also love a good sweet malty brown ale as well like Cigar City Maduro and Sam Smith Nut Brown Ale.

 

If it's heavily hopped it becomes a Brown Beer rather than a Brown Ale.

 

I find it amusing that so many people are saying things such as "brown ales are supposed to be malty and that's how I like them". If we'd stuck to that thinking we'd all be drinking gruit and saying "I like my beer with a bunch of bog myrtle and weird spices sold to brewers by the church, how it's supposed to be" and rejecting hopped beers. We probably wouldn't be drinking lagers. We also wouldn't be drinking bourbon barrel aged beers. Or highly carbonated beers. Or gueze. And so on.

Tradition is a useful starting point but it shouldn't be a crutch. You may not like something - and hopefully you have rationale for it to stimulate discussion not simply "yuck that's gross" because then we might as well be talking to 5 year olds - but it's limiting to state that history dictates the boundaries. Experimentation is what's made American brewers some of the most exciting in the world.

 

I forgot about Old Brown Dog. Surprised it took this long for someone to mention it here. That's a good one. Some people have been mentioning DFH Indian Brown Ale as a good example. I disagree. It's very hoppy! I do like it quite a bit even so.

 

Sweet, smooth, malty. The Hazelnut flavor doesn't really stand out IMO.

 

I had the Bitch Creek, which is similar, and didn't care for it, for many of the reasons noted above. I'd be open to trying a different version, but it just didn't seem to mix. And the Bitch Creek in general just didn't seem to work; oddball blast of carbonation at the finish did not help anything. I love the browns though, especially in cooler weather. Will also definitely miss the Tumbler, that was a good one.

 

the Stone/FatHead colloboration "TBA" or Texas Brown Ale, was one of my favorite beers of all time. I want more

 

I'm with you! Not my intention to generalize, but IMO many American brewers have taken the hop joke wayyyyy to far.
Hops have their place of course but it's not so much in a brown ale.

 

I really enjoyed that one, too. It's mostly thought of as a Homebrew style, and I can't recall any other commercial beers calling themselves a Texas Brown Ale; there really should be more of them (although I wonder if DFH Indian brown would qualify as one?).
Some history-
http://www.winning-homebrew.com/American-Brown-Ale.html

 

I will have to agree with this.
I will continue to search for more though, because I love a good malty Brown Ale.