On tap @ Taco Mac in Peachtree City, GA, USA.
Absolutely delighted by the concept of a SN beer that *should* reduce the hop profile to a lesser role, let’s see if the beer manages to apply that theory to practice.
Nothing to complain about in the pour. A decent dark brown color (personally I’d like to see a little more red in the body but that’s really a personal preference) with a nice, rocky, full head that lingers and produces some super lace. Good looking beer.
Nose and tastes do well to uphold the malt aspect of the Brown Ale. Whenever I see the style “American” Brown Ale I slightly cringe, since what that usually translates into is a Brown Ale that is over-hopped. To me, Brown Ales are one style that simply suffers when we start to add extravagant hop profiles, and given SN’s “house style” this had warnings ALL over it for me. Personally I think there IS a little too much hop profile in the beer, BUT by SN standards, and by the standards on many American Brown Ales, I can live with it. A little toffee starts the beer and there is plenty of light roasted sweet malts to help it along. The finish and aftertaste seem to reflect a little too much bitterness for me, but to be honest it’s short lived and fades pretty quickly. NOT a fruity beer, but still gives light touches and manages to stay away from jarring bitterness.
The beer does manage to retain an important quality of Brown Ales which is the moreish element. One is never quite enough so I credit SN for pulling that off.
So, we’ve managed to gt SN to dial back the hops and produce a very nice Brown Ale, now all we need to do is to take the ABV down to 4% so we can call this a session ale and it can take its proper place in the drinking rotation! That might be too much to wish for! All in all a success that should go well with some cooler weather.