Rogue HazelNut Brown Nectar

Brewed by Rogue Ales
Style: Brown Ale
Newport, Oregon USA

Kinda nut bread sweet smell. Cloudy muddy water brown. Kinda thin on the taste. This is much better than the drainpour from New Holland I just had but I prefer the Dogfish.

Bottle. Amber brown with minmal head. Amazig aroma of rich hazelnut and chocolate. Taste is more hazelnuts, caramel and toffee, great dark malts, and finish of mild hops.

650 mL Bottle. Rich brown body with a fast dissipating pale brown fizzy head. Molasses and hazelnut dominate in the aroma with hints of toffee and herbal / floral. Full flavor a combination of molasses, chocolate, rich dark malt. Licorice expresses in the aftertaste and finish along with some hop bitterness. The beer is a bit sweet for my liking. It would go well with spare ribs or other pork entree.

Bottle. Pours dark coppery brown with a creamy tan head that doesn’t last long. Nose is strong on hazelnuts (big surprise!) with lesser aromas of chocolate and malt. Also aroma is very syrupy, a bit like the syrups used to flavour coffee. Flavour again has hazelnut upfront but is also slightly woody and malty with a little bit of hop bitterness coming through at the end. Medium bodied yet still surprisingly light given the aroma and appearance. I’m glad I tried this but I can’t see myself buying it often.

Dark brown pour into my pub glass produced a smallish head. The smell is euphoric; sweet, obvious hazelnut notes, fresh honeyed bread. Tastes of dark roasted whole wheat bread with an oily nuttiness, the hazelnut coming through nicely in the finish. Not super malt-y, and only a hint of hop bitterness and doesn’t taste as sweet as the smell belies, which is nice. For the minimal head, the carbonation is a little zingy on the palate but the overall consistency is thick but not cloying, pleasant and lets you know you’re drinking a full bodied beer. Update: after drinking, my mouth had a sour flavor, not unlike the sensation after drinking a sugary carbonated beverage. Cuts into the overall impression.

Draft @ Cheeseburger Island Style, Reno. Pours a medium, clear amber-brown color; light tan head with good retention and shimmering lacing; solid pour. Really nice oily nuttiness and hints of brown sugar and chocolate in the nose; light vanilla; generous maltiness without being sweet. Medium mouthfeel: lots of toasty, sweet maltiness, light coffee and milk chocolate; a bit of mineral bitterness balancing things; just the mildest amount of a hazelnut syrupiness keeping this from being insanely good. Lasting toasty finish, nuttiness, chocolate.

Dark walnut color topped by a medium head after my vigorous pour. Very nice aroma of chocolate malt with hints of sweet nuttiness. Flavor is the same but with a lightly toasty, bready quality. Mouthfeel is slightly thinner than expected, and there is just enough bitterness at the back to pull back the reigns on all the sweetness. Exceedingly smooth and sessionable. I was quite unexpectedly impressed by this one, and would have to say that it is most certainly in my top three for ’Browns’. Don’t forget to let this one warm up a little, otherwise you will be robbed of the rewards (especially true of this style, in my opinion).

Pour a deep mahogany with a small white head. Aroma shows plenty of hazelnuts and maybe a little choclate biscuit. Hazelnuts also show through in the flavours with some aramel. Plenty of hops on the back palate. Finish is a little watery. Overall a bloody good beer.