McNeills Summer Brown Ale

Brewed by McNeills Brewery
Style: Brown Ale
Brattleboro, Vermont USA

Poured a medium and cloudy brown color with a smaller sized off white head. Stronger toffee aroma with butterscotch and light nuts. Tastes of nuts, toffee, caramel, toasted and roasted malts. Thinner body. This one was OK - would make a decent session beer.

Pours a dark copper with a thin, shot-lived ring of foam. Light caramel malt aroma. Very watery with lightly roasted character. Tastes like they only used half the malt they should've. Judging by the other ratings, perhaps I got a bad bottle.

A boorish dry yeast presence evokes plant-like flour, or dusty DMS...These overpowering forces cast a ghoulish shadow on the roasty bitterness...Old cherry wine hiding in moldy cellar, threatened by the flying ashes...Considering other ratings for most of their low-gravity seasonal brews (with the Commodore 64 labels), this brewery seems to be having pretty serious bottling inconsistencies...

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.

Aug 01. Knockout nose on the newest (to my knowledge) in the ever-expanding McNeills repertoire. Huge raspberry/hops/flower aroma which hits hard in the flavor as well. I don't know if it's a brown ale at all, but I like it! Nice color, too, though as with their OTHER brown ale its too hoppy on the rear end for me. Maltiness strong enough on the tongue, but guys a brown ale is supposed to go down SMOOTH. Still, overall, another winner from this great brewery.

July 03. Too bitter, too brackish, too much carbonation. Thin. Big dropoff from last sample. Well, the Kolsch made up for it.<p. Aug 04: more of the same. One of McNeills weaker efforts...mediocre brown/pale, little fruitiness this year. Ehhh

Herbal hops, some roasty malts in the lightly acidic aroma. Hazy flat brown coloured body with shy white head. Roasted malts, mild balsamic acidity, some cooked cabbage and meaty, sulfury flavour. Thin and watery texture with low carbonation. Unfortunately this one had to pleasure the drain. Bottle sampled with MartinT and Olivier (Winooski Beverage Warehouse - Dec. 2004).

Poured a reddish brown color with a white bubbly head and sparce lacing on the glass. Nose begins caramelly and nutty, possibly some butterscotch as well. Very nice sweet caramel, mocha, lots of nut. Sweet and creamy, with just the slightest bit of citrus. Wow one of the best browns I have had.

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.