Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale

Brewery: Samuel Smith Old Brewery
Where: N. Yorkshire, England
Beer: Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale
Style: English Brown Ale
IBU: N/A
ABV: N/A

Here's another severely underrated beer in my opinion...  It's not actually underrated as beeradvocate.com gives it an A- average over 900+ reviews.  What's unique about this beer is the simple fact that it IS a world-class beer and it sells at an every-day price compared to most other craft and micros. 

This beer pours with a deep and rich walnut brown color with a foamy head that maintains its presence throughout the entire drink.  This style is represented by a faint note of hazelnuts with a strong presence of crystal malt that creates a light roasted caramel flavor and aroma.  This beer is definitly on the sweeter side of the malt/hop scale and has a fantastic mouthfeel. 

I made a visit to Gail's Hops and Grapes yesterday and picked up a few Trappist beers, so we have some good Belgians in the tasting queue in the near future...

Carolina Beer Company – Cottonwood Low Down Brown

After a really long day, I came home and decided to try another new brew from my "not tried" stash.  I didn't want anything too hardcore because it has been such a long day, so I pulled out the Cottonwood Low Down Brown from Carolina Beer Company.  I popped the top and poured it in the glass for a quick inspection.  The beer does have a nice brown tone, but the head was very reminiscent of the recent Samurai Ale from Great Divide's collection.  It was more of a soda head that quickly subsided and faded to nothing within just a few minutes.  Luckily, this beer stands heads and shoulders above the mighty Samurai in flavor and texture.  This brew has a nice malty body and a slight hint of chocolate that makes it hang tough with the rest of the beers in the Brown Ale family.  With the exception of the poor head, this is as good as any Brown Ale I have tried. 

When I pulled this one from the fridge, I restocked the spot with another selection from Bell's, so I hope to have that one featured shortly...

Abita Turbodog

My first disappointment when I popped open the my Abita Turbodog was that the bottle has a twist-off top.  Since I'm a home brewer, I like to reuse my bottles, and this one has to go in the recycle bin...

That being said, the Turbodog is a rather nice brown ale.  It has a rich body with a dark brown color and nicely balanced hop presence.  That nice head you see in the photo didn't hang around very long, but the flavor is nice, none-the-less.

From the bottle:

Abita's Turbodog is a dark brown ale brewed with a combination of pale, crystal, and chocolate malts, dry-hopped with the finest Willamette hops, and fermented using a unique German alt yeast.  Each batch is hand crafted using the pristine artisan waters of Abita Springs, Louisiana, resulting in a rich body and color, and a sweet-chocolate-toffee like flavor.  Guilded by our principle of "quality before quantity" Turbodog is cold filtered and brewed in small batches using no additives or preservatives.  Like all of our beers, Turbodog is prepared with the attention to detail upon which we have built our reputation as one of the country's finest breweries.

ABV: 5.6% - IBU: 28

This beer is definitely worth revisiting and I would also like to try a few of their other brews when the opportunity presents itself...