Summer Brown Ale
McNeill's Brewery in Brattleboro, Vermont, United States 🇺🇸
Brown Ale Regular|
Score
5.66
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Appearance - 2 | Aroma - 1 | Flavor - 1 | Texture - 2 | Overall - 0.5
Reviewed from notes.
The appearance was a gusher from the bottle. Foam all over the place. Dark color sort of arrangement of brown to ruby notes in the body, what one can see.
The aroma was apple cider vinegar, full fledged with the red wine, sour beyond the years penetrating my nose into submission. Turpentine.
The flavor was sour beyond belief claiming my tastebuds for their own. Turpentine. I don’t even want to say what the aftertaste seemed like.
The feel was light bodied with no sort of sessionable feel about it. Carbonation harshness went above and beyond to slay my palate.
Overall, yeah, McNeil’s should probably give it up.
Lubiere (24459) reviewed Summer Brown Ale from McNeill's Brewery 16 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
A lightly hazed brown ale with a thin off white head. Light nutty malt aroma, with light British hops. In mouth, a nice nutty ale with roasted malts, a bit of lactic notes. Medium bodied. On tap at brewpub August 2 2009.
Clarkvv (16523) reviewed Summer Brown Ale from McNeill's Brewery 19 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Draught at McNeill’s on 7/14/06.
Highly-hazed chestnut brown body has some dark beige notes on the edges, while the head is a creamy-ivory, rather whispy and creating a fair amount of lacing as it slowly fades to cover.
The nose is very dry for a brown ale, with citric hops bursting forth initially and really opening up the sinuses. Some buttercream (not diacetyl) and a definite nuttiness softly and slowly fills in the back. Deeply toasted grains give a hint of coffee or hazelnut, but it mixes with the yeast to become quite subtle. Certainly no gobs of sweet maltiness here, though you might call it too dry in the nose and too hop-dominated as a result.
The attenuation level on the beer is quite striking. Nearly no malt sweetness with husky grains producing some tannic/acidic notes. The more I think of it, it does almost seem "sour", as Eric claimed. Not in a lactic/bacterial sour sense, but just a downright dry, astrigent sourness that builds on the palate. So, obviously, some will find it much too dry for their liking and perhaps this beer just had extremely poor extraction and shouldnt even be terribly dry. Regardless, I appreciated the dryness and still found the hazelnut and light, creamy toffee notes to add a moderate depth. The mouthfeel, while grainy, is still vigorous and I certainly did not get any of the wateriness mentioned in many reviews. Alcohol was not apparent in aroma or flavor. High house yeast character.