A beautiful copper colored pour with a nice, solid head and some decent retention. Anchor dot-matrix dating TSF.

Nose hits me with a much greener first impression that I was expecting.

This is surprisingly bitter – real it is! Plenty of carmel notes, sure, but a distinct lack of sweetness. Not ONLY is the sweetness missing, there is also a VERY healthy dose of soapy/hoppy bitterness. I’m very taken aback.

There is a lot of herbal, earthy tomes here, with the complex hop-profile playing a much bigger role than most people would guess fro the name. No maple element for me as far as my palate can tell.

Substantial beer in terms of its aggression, too.

I feel a little disappointed, since the name would suggest a rich, sweet beer that would be closer to an English Brown ale. In reality, it forms something MUCH closer to an American Brown Ale. There is some nutty character there, but the C hops overwhelm it pretty darn quickly. This turns out to be a pretty bitter and hoppy beer – odd.