Santa Cruz Mountain Organic Dread Brown Ale

Brewed by Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing
Style: Brown Ale
Santa Cruz, California USA

Bomber pours dark brown with tan head and spotty lacing. The aroma moves from lightly roasted to highly roasted then to burnt malts. There’s also a faint stale maltiness usually noticed in organic brews. The taste is nice and roasty going from rich roasted malts, mild caramel malts and then to burnt malts. Taste almost Porter like. I do get a mild combination of hops and faint stale malts. Tasty brew. Lots of flavor for a brown.

16-May-07 (22 oz bottle: $3.49 at Holiday Wine Cellar in Escondido, CA) One bottle I bought from BevMo was infected (actually, practically every bottle of Santa Cruz Mountain beer I purchased from BevMo has been infected), but fortunately, this one from HWC is fine. It’s a gorgeous pour: a tall, creamy, tan head provides a session-long cap for the ruby-brown body. Malty, moderately sweet, very chocolaty and fairly yeasty, this is a richer, fuller-bodied and more rewarding beer to drink than most brown ales. A hint of phenolics in the finish is a problem, but it’s very mild and just a mild distraction. Chocolaty and bready nose with moderate yeastiness coming out as well. Medium-full in body with fairly strong carbonation. Head retention is pretty amazing: I’ve nursed this beer for over two hours, yet there’s still a full layer of head. There’s even considerable patchy lacing on the glass. And even at room temperature, this beer is still quite tasty. Once this brewery resolves their bottling issues, I’d happily recommend it to someone looking for a really good brown

(Bottle) Pours a dark brown body with a small tan head. Aroma of chocolate, roasted malt, cola, and caramel. Flavor of roasted malt, hops, and nuts with a bitter finish.

Name: Dread Brown Ale
Date: August 16, 2006
Mode: Bottle
Source: Tasting
Appearance: opaque brown, big beige head
Aroma: light chocolate aroma
Flavor: nice dry chocolate flavor, touch of roasted coffee character
Aroma: 6/10; Appearance: 8/10; Flavor: 6/10; Palate: 5/10; Overall: 12/20
Rating: 3.1/5.0
Drinkability: 8/10
Score: *4

Bottle. Head is initially average sized, frothy, brown, mostly lasting. Body is dark brown. Aroma is moderately malty (roasted/toasted grain, caramel), lightly hoppy (herbs). Flavor is moderately sweet, moderately to heavily acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly sweet, moderately to heavily acidic, lightly to moderately bitter. Medium body, watery texture, lively carbonation. Whew, that’s one sour monkey! Like the amber ale, I have to wonder if this was intentional or not...probably not. The intense sourness was not portended by the aroma, which was pleasant enough. Hopefully this brewery will improve its sanitation procedures and future batches will be more predictable.

Sampled out of a 22oz bottle. Had a ton of carbonation and poured very smoothly into a pint glass. Reminded me of Newcastle but had an addtion of roasted malts and smoke. A very well crafted brew.

Papery, chemical notes in the nose. Looks good though--dark brown color with a huge foamy head. Sweet raisin notes in the body, some caramel. Roasted malt towards the end and then some hop flavor. The profile is all over the board and kinda uncontrolled. Decent, but not so thrilling after all.

Nice black color, mekdum head. Nice intense roasted malt taste and nose, also some chocolate detectable.