Santa Cruz Mountain Organic Dread Brown Ale

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

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.

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.

[Tap - North American Organic Brewers Festival] A great dark color brew itha fantastic aroma. This was not a porter nor a stout but gave hints of each, This was full of flavor and had a great finish. A truly great Organic brew. Some spices also and a great coffee feel. This was a great beer.

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.

Bottle from Santa ChrisO420. First rate in a while ... pretty busy month so far. Anyway, very nice for a brown ale. Pours very dark with a slightly overactive head and a nice lace. Nice earthy and roasty aroma. Very roasty in the mouth. I wasn’t really expecting it to be that roasty and earthy. Very nice. Despite the initial roastiness, it finished smooth and almost creamy. In fact, if this had a Thomas Hooker label on it, I wouldn’t be surprised. Very nice brown ale. Thanks, Chris!

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 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.

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