Tallgrass Ale - Tallgrass Brewing Co., Manhattan

Tallgrass is a young brewery, especially considering the relatively short history of modern craft beer in America. Established in 2007, Tallgrass has a pretty modest line up of five brews. The Tallgrass Ale, an English style Brown Ale, is their flagship beer. This style of beer isn't one that is easy to get excited about, but I'll give the Tallgrass folks credit for choosing this as their first commercial beer. The Tallgrass Ale has a rich brown body with red highlights and very little carbonation. The aroma is a little sweet but mostly earthy with hints of almonds and cashews. My initial impressions of the flavor were that is quite heavily roasted and almost burnt. This subsided as a drank more of the beer and began to pick up on the malt and brown sugar sweetness.

For a Brown Ale, the Tallgrass Ale hits the mark pretty well. This beer is roasty and a little sweet while being smooth and easy to drink. Most Brown Ales I've had before have been more bitter and a bit spicy, the Tallgrass is only faintly bitter and it works quite well. Considering the style isn't one I'm terribly fond of, I happily finished my pint of Tallgrass Ale and could easily drink a few more. I found this beer quite delicious when it warmed up, the closer it got to room temperature the more I could pick up on the sweet flavors and the strong roastiness faded away.

If you're a fan of Brown Ales you owe it to yourself to try the Tallgrass Ale, it may not meet your expectations of what a traditional Brown Ale should be but I'm willing to bet you'll enjoy it on it's own merits. Lovers of English Brown Ales will appreciate this beer for it's sweet brown sugar flavor while those drinkers who are partial to American Brown Ales will be left asking where all the hops went...