Brown Ale

TWO DOLLARS. TWO. DOLLARS. That's right, two dollars is all it costs to take home 22 ounces of Mission St. Brown Ale. Well, the sticker price is actually $1.99, but whatever... This is the cheapest bomber I've ever seen, cheaper than Stone and even cheaper than Lagunitas. I don't make a point to drink the cheapest beer on the shelf but I've had a couple really good Mission St. beers and figured I couldn't pass up this Brown Ale. I mean, $2 for a bottle of beer that's (more or less) brewed by Firestone Walker? That's just crazy cheap...

I recently received a gift of several six packs from Indiana. One of these sixers was from Barley Island Brewing Company in Noblesville, Indiana. Honestly, I'd never heard of Barley Island before I got this six pack, so I really don't know what to expect from their beer. It turns out Barley Island is a pair of brewpubs in the Indianapolis area that brews about a dozen styles of beer. The sixer I have in front of me is Dirty Helen, a Brown Ale. Dirty Helen has a great label, it's simple with a monochrome drawing of Dirty Helen herself.

I don't bring many Unibroue beers home with me. In fact, I've only written about one other Unibroue beer and that was over two years ago. I hold Unibroue is pretty high regard and often order a Unibroue when I'm out at a restaurant with a decent selection. For some reason though I tend to glance over the Quebec section when I'm at the liquor store. This bottle of Quelque Chose caught my eye yesterday, probably because it looked unfamiliar. I don't think I've ever heard of this beer before and the bottle text convinced me it was worth taking home. The Quelque Chose is a Dark Ale and Brown Ale blend brewed with cherries.

It's finally here, the long awaited collaboration brew from Boulevard and Christopher Elbow arrived in Kansas City this week and it was welcomed with open arms... a LOT of open arms. The larger liquor stores around town received around a dozen cases of Chocolate Ale and nearly every bottle was sold before 5pm on that first day. It seemed this local collaboration really struck a chord with Kansas Citians, it also didn't hurt that this is a chocolate beer and it hit shelves right before Valentine's Day. Whatever the reason, folks are clamoring to try the Chocolate Ale, and I can't blame them.

Surly and coffee are two words I don't think I want to hear in the same sentence. The Surly beers I've had thus far have been just a little too bitter to be enjoyable. Adding coffee to an already bitter beer is not my idea of a good time. That's why I was in no big hurry to open this can of Surly Coffee Bender. I didn't really care for the Bender and it strike me as the kind of beer that could use the addition of coffee. It's come time to clean out the fridge so this can of Coffee Bender has to go, whether it's in my glass or down the drain. I've been surprised by coffee beers in the past so I'm holding out hope the Coffee Bender is more than the sum of its parts.

I'm nearing the end of my New Glarus stash and it's bittersweet, the moment... not the beer. Toward the end of summer I received a sizable quantity of Wisconsin's most sought after product (as far as I'm concerned). It seemed like each beer was better than the last. The Spotted Cow was good, the Moon Man was great and the Enigma was amazing. I've opened up a bottle of Fat Squirrel this afternoon to make some room in the old fridge and finally wrap up these New Glarus reviews. Like most New Glarus beers, this is the first bottle of it that I've had and I don't know much about it. In fact, I didn't even know they made this beer before I got them... All I know is this is a Nut Brown Ale and all the New Glarus beers I've had thus far have been delightful. Not a bad place to start.

I just got back from a birthday road trip to Denver with a pretty decent haul of beers that I can't get back home. It's been less than 18 hours, I'm good and rested so I figured I'd open up one of my new beers and take it for a spin. I settled on this bottle of Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron because I had a little taste of it on tap while in Denver and wanted to make sure it was really as good as I remembered. Hopefully, it is... because I brought three 4 packs back last night. Anyways, I sampled the Palo Santo at Falling Rock between other, lighter beers and really enjoyed its complexity and smoothness. There was a smooth je ne sais quoi to this beer that I chocked up to the Palo Santo wood. Now that I've got the Palo Santo all to myself, I'm eager to give it a formal review.

Honey Brown Ales always sound so good. A sweet warming Brown Ale that's just a little hoppy, enough to make you not feel ashamed of drinking a beer with honey in it... I've been burnt by these deceptively delicious sounding beers far too many times before, I've become helplessly skeptical of Honey Browns at this point. This bottle of Twisted Pine Honey Brown Ale has been sitting in my beer fridge for about two months now because I couldn't bring myself to open a bottle of Honey Brown when I knew it was going to be a let down. Well, I figure they can't all be winners so I might as well get this Honey Brown out of the way today to make some room for beers I'm a little more optimistic about.

This can of Surly Brewing Company's Bender found its way to me through a beer trade. Surly doesn't distribute to my neck of the woods but I had heard some good things about their beers. This was the first Surly I'd had so I went into it with an open mind and an eagerness to try something new. The description on the back of the can certainly got my attention by describing this beer as an "oatmeal brown ale" ... sounds promising. Pouring this (very full) pint sized can into my glass was relatively uneventful. The head was predictably fluffly and the body was a dark reddish brown that only got darker the more it settled. Things were promising but I was suddenly a bit more reserved with my optimism.

I found a lone bottle of Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale in my basement today and figured it was about time I got around to reviewing it. I started off knowing practically nothing about this beer other than what was on the label. The name perplexed me a bit, what is an Indian Brown Ale? Everyone knows what an IPA is, so surely the India in this beer's name refers to the hop levels. The brown ale part of this beer I assumed was the base, much maltier than you'd get with a plain old IPA. Sounds interesting but I'm not entirely sold on the concept...