Tommyknocker Imperial Nut Brown Ale

Brewed by Tommyknocker Brewery
Style: American Strong Ale
Idaho Springs, Colorado USA

Dark red-orange body, medium cream head. Plummy sweet aroma with caramel, toast, and yeast- overly sweet with notes of soy. Flavor of grape and brown sugar, earthy esters, and toast, breads, and hints of soy. Little to no alcohol. Sweet, fruity finish. Strong but strange; too sweet and strangely shallow.

Bottle. Pours dark brown with a small off-white head. Roasted malt and kinda sweet. Slightly sour notes and feels too high carbonated and slighlty alcoholic. Somewhat hoppy and bitter finish.

22 oz bottle for $2.99 at whole foods. sweet aroma of alcohol and residual sugar floats above a dark brown beer which is not quite black or opaque but murky nonetheless. doesn’t smell as big as the bottle implies, but perhaps the alcohol is well-hidden... the flavor is initially dry fermented sugar (i would have guessed honey if i hadn’t known that it was maple sryup) but it yields to fusel flavors and other ’off’ flavors like straw and earth. i think this beer is too big for its britches.

Pours very dark, almost opaque, with a light beige head that is made up of very small bubbles and dissipates pretty quickly. The aroma smells very sweet - sugar, malts, figs, maple syrup - and the alcoholic strength is also apparent from the aroma. The aroma also contains some mild hop aromas and some yeast. The flavor is very sweet, very nutty, with some caramel, molasses, chocolate, and more maple syrup. The hop flavors are slight but become more apparent towards the finish of the beer, and the beer finishes nicely - not dry, but not sickly sweet either. The texture and mouthfeel of the beer is quite nice - thick, but not syrupy, with creamy, small-bubbled suds (carbonation).

Tan head, dark brown body, sweet malty aroma, with maple and caramel, sweet nutty flavor, some chocolate and caramel. Pretty decent.

1pt 6oz bottle. Big surprise for me here! Very reasonable price - $4! Murky dark brown pour. A Large fizzy head almost to the point of looking like soda. Aroma was nutty and malt. Mouthfeel was full and smooth. Flavor was sweet chocolate, coffee and malt. The aftertaste was robust and finished ever so slightly bitter. Speaking as an Imperial Stout lover... This was really, really good ale. I give it my highest recommendation.

Bomber. Poured deep burgundy with a well-retained medium cap of beige head. Nose was of alcohol-laden maple syrup, milky caramel, cane sugar, and pine resin... too sweet and too boozy. Alcohol dominated every facet of the drink from a tingly burn at the tip of the tongue to a maple liquory presence at the finish... even gave me slight shivers. The flavor also picked up maple sugar in the middle, herbal hops, semi-sweet chocolate, and a hint of oak... a bit stale. Slick alcohol front on the palate with a poor transition to a syrupy feel at the finish... left the mouth tacky. This was indeed "Imperial"... but not very good.

I’m trying this side by side with the regular Tommyknocker Maple Nut Brown Ale... The Imperial Nut Brown Ale is a very deep dark brown, almost black color. Creamy tan head that doesn’t disappear too quickly. Aroma is mostly of alcohol, roasted malt, a some sweet syrup. Flavor is mostly alcohol and tastes like an overly fermented homebrew gone wrong, with a bit of roasty/burnt/smoky quality in the finish. No bitterness at all. Seems very thin and watery. After reading other reviews for this beer, I either have really different tastes or got a bad bottle. This is the eight Tommyknocker brew I have tried and can now say that I have lost all hope with their brews. I won’t be revisiting any of them again. UPDATE: This is getting better the warmer it gets. The alcohol becomes more hidden and some of the subtleties of the syrup and darker malts are now coming through... 650 mL bottle, $3.49 from The Party Source.