Santa Cruz Mountain Organic Dread Brown Ale

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

Bottle: Muddy brown, looks nearly identacle to coke cola, huge pillowy light beige head, patches of lacing.   Fairly large chocolate malt nose, like a porter or lighter stout, slight ash or charred wood as well.   A little lactic sourness is present.   Very effervescent on the tongue, over-bubbley even, good roasted malts for a brown, but with less than expected chocolate malt flavors.   Strong lactic sourness.   Probably explains the huge head.   Very spritzy indeed.   This bottle had no headspace whatsoever.   Decent example, but perhaps a bit too lively.

Bottle sampled on 8/16/06: Pours a dark mahogany with a frothy-well-lacing light tan head. Aroma of toasty, bready dark caramel malt. Body starts with nice dark caramel sweetness and a more bitter coffee balance toward a slightly roasty finish. Very drinkable and flavorful for a brown.

Bottle from BevMo. Pours very dark in color. Sweet chocolate aroma with a little roasted maltiness. Sweet roasted malty flavor is dominant. Finish is bitter with some roasted coffee. A little sour as well.

Bomber <P> Pours deep brown with a smallish, but creamymocha colored head that is mostly diminishing. Aroma is cocoa, roasted malt, mild chocolate and caramel and a musky and organic puppy breath-like smell. <P> Fore is smooth sweet malt, roasty then strongly bitter through the middle with a vegetal undercooked turnip stems bitterness. That melds into more smooth brown-ale sippability featuring carmaelized notes that still remain fairly sweet into the finish. Pretty enjoyable Brown.

22oz. bottle. Deep brown-black color with a small light brown head. Mild toasty malt aromatics with an earthen tinge. Earthy, vegetal hop character in the nose. Gives way to nutty and roasty malt flavors with a drying astringency. Mild malty sweetness in the finish underneath residual hop grassiness and bitterness. Mouthfeel is light, rather dry.

22 oz. bottle decants a deep coca-cola/root-beer brown, with a nice tan head that retains well and leaves good lace. rather typical brown ale nose - some sticky caramel notes blended in with some drying cocoa powder. roastiness increases as beer warms. a bit of sweet maltiness up front as quite quickly dried out by a well-integrated driness that has elements of both roast and a fairly swift kick of hop bitterness. interesting take on a brown ale. while the character of the hops is british, their bitterness is quite strong for anything resembling a British Brown Ale. but not sweet and caramel/sticky like most American browns. nice concoction.

Bottle: Courtesy of DarkElf via trade. Aroma of roasted nuts, chocolate, and a hint of coffee. Pours a dark brown with minimal transparency and minimal beige head. Very roasty with lots of nuttiness and grain. Hints of chocolate in the background. Finishes with a moderate coffee and light burnt flavors. Thin watery mouthfeel.

Not your ordinary brown ale. Roasted malt aroma reminiscent of a dry stout. Very aromatic with light hints of vanilla. Deep Ruby in color with small head. Creamy mouthfeel. Lots of toasted hazelnuts and roasted malts in the flavor balanced with a subtle hop bite. There are no overwhelming characteristics to make it boring like some brown ales - i.e. to much caramel. Incredibly quaffable. I think folks may have to rethink their notion on brown ales after this.