Harlequin Brown Ale

 Toronto’s Great Lakes Brewery is the source of Harlequin Brown Ale, a 5.5% brown sold in 473mL cans. The beer is brewed with Harlequin hops which provide, according to the copy, “a shot of tropical fruit flavours and aromas”. The burnished copper ale pours with a lasting layer of beige suds.

To my schnoz, the beer has roasted malt, iron, bread, and burnt sugar aromatics. The flavour kicks of maltily and drifts hopward, touching on metallic, nutty, and piney. Despite the paragraph on the can, I can’t say I picked up on tropical fruit elements, though. The only new world hop note I really picked out was in the evergreen bitterness of the finish.

Harlequin Brown Ale is an enjoyable American-style brown. Although I didn’t personally detect any tropical aromas/flavours, that doesn’t mean they aren’t there, and it doesn’t really matter, since the beer tastes quite good.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Flight HBC 472

 Toronto’s Great Lakes Brewery is the source of Flight HBC 472, an American Brown Ale. The beer contains 5.8% and comes in 473mL cans with a boarding pass theme. It’s an attractive mahogany ale that pours with a thin disc of creamy head.

HBC 472 has a hearty roasted malt aroma, accented with brown sugar. The flavour runs from slightly sweet to fairly hoppy, and it touches on caramel, molasses, and burnt toast. The beer starts creamily, but builds to a bitter finish.

This isn’t the best brown ale I’ve had, but it has some very good attributes and I’d gladly buy it again. I’d have liked a richer bitterness and a bit more booze, but I definitely enjoyed the roasty toasty quality.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Duque Americano

After a lengthy climb up a seemingly never ending series of flights of stairs, the Bitter Wife and I arrived, sweaty and thirsty, at the Cervejaria Artesanal Duque. A small brewpub and craft beer bar, the Duque only had five of their own beers on tap, as well as a curated selection of other Portuguese taps and bottles. Shout out to the music selection—we arrived to a punk Johnny Cash cover and heard Frank Zappa, Radiohead, and Tom Waits during our stay.

For my first pint, I opted for a pour of Duque Americano, their take on an American Brown Ale. My 5% (according to the Untappd listing) brew arrived stout-dark and crowned with a thin but persistent cream head. The beer had a velvety molasses and malt aroma. The flavour was pretty robust, with roasted malt lording over the front and and a sizable bitter presence brings up the rear. Flavour notes were primarily sticky molasses, backed with espresso and a touch of sappy bitterness.

A fine offering from a small and charming beer joint, Duque Americano got the brown ale job done admirably. Totally worth climbing all those steps (Bitter Wife likely doesn’t agree).

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Deep Tracks

New, or at least new to me, is Deep Tracks, an American Brown Ale from the "normal is weird" crowd at Barrie, Ontario's Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery. Sold in 473mL cans featuring a guitar-wielding lad walking a dirt track, this ale contained a heady 6.2% alcohol and 45 IBUs. The beer poured with an impossibly fluffy off-white head. Beneath that, it proved to be a dark brown ale with ruby highlights.

To my nose, Deep Tracks had a very mild smell--caramel maltiness leaning on a faintly bitter foundation. The flavour had a bit more oomph. It started sweetly, with caramel goodness leading the way. Behind that came a mellow finish, turning up just slightly at the very end with a crackle of hops bitterness. In terms of mouthfeel, this ale was creamy and smooth.

While Deep Tracks wasn't as bitter and assertive as many of the American Brown Ales I've sipped in the past, it did have a lovely character that left me feeling peaceful and jolly. If Flying Monkeys keep brewing this stuff, I'm sure I'll keep buying it--it has the cache needed to worm its way into my semi-regular Ontario beer purchasing repertoire.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Louis Cifer American Brown Ale

I got off work about an hour before my wife on a Wednesday evening and had to kill some time before date night, so I headed off in her direction and ducked into the Louis Cifer Brew Works, a relatively new brewpub on Toronto's east side. It was really early when I arrived, so the big place was almost empty which suited me fine. I grabbed a seat and ordered up a pint of their American Brown Ale, a 5.8% alcohol number brewed in house.

My pint turned up looking elegant--chestnut hued, clear, and created with a sudsy cream head. The ABA featured a quite pleasing aroma of nuts and roasted malt, backed with molasses. The flavour started slow, with a slightly flimsy, malty initial note, but picked up a bit of steam toward the finish, as roasted nut and malt asserted themselves a bit more emphatically. The finish even had a whisper of bitterness, though nowhere near at the level I was hoping for from an American brown.

If this stuff were simply offered as a brown ale, I'd have been a bit more keen on it, but by selling it as an American brown, I got my hops hopes up--my bitter bias riled--and found myself a trifle disappointed. LC's take on the style was not what I expected, though the beer I received did taste pretty good. A bit more noise from the front end and substantial bitterness to close and this stuff would have had me singing its praises. Instead, I'm merely speaking them.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

"Dean" PNW Mahogany Ale

My next foray into SingleCut Beersmith's offerings was their "Dean" PNW Mahogany Ale. I had a pint on tap at the brewpub in Queens. What I got was a clear ale with a nice, amber-brown colour under an off-white foam. Dean contained 6% alcohol.

It's aroma had toasted caramel on the brain, but also packed a dank hop wallop. The flavour was decidedly woodsy. Earthy malt notes mingled with evergreen and a musty hop charm. There is also a pretty healthy caramel malt base that "really tied the room together."

I found this beer to be evocative of beards, campfires, and canoeing--very outdoorsy and vaguely wild. My advice to you is that if you're in NYC, drag yourself out to Queens and grab yourself a pint (or a growler) of these rootsy suds.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Eephus Oatmeal Brown Ale

I suspect it will be impossible for me to drink a pint of Left Field Brewery's Eephus Oatmeal Brown Ale without thinking about Richard Pryor in the role of down and out pitcher Montgomery Brewster in the cinematic classic Brewster's Millions. The slow, lazy, high-arcing pitch that Pryor/Brewster tosses to baffle opponents is the Eephus (though I don't recall the word ever being uttered in the film).

So we have a beer named in honour of a junk pitch that comes from a Torontonian brewery with a baseball hang up. I was immediately interested.

I purchased a sixer of 473mL cans at the brewery's bottle shop after a visit to the joint. Eephus pours a creamy deep brown, with amber highlights. It decanted with a nice layer of eggshell head, though it barely made it out of the first inning. There is a mellow but engrossing aroma that is reminiscent of warm cocoa and cool chocolate milk. Despite its pedigree as an American Brown Ale, Eephus' flavour is initially milk stout-like, with molasses and mocha notes dominating the front end, though there is a bitter, cigar smoke back end that keeps things interesting through the finish and prevents the beer from succumbing to over-sweetness.

At 5.5%, Eephus isn't troublesome, and combined with a velvety mouthfeel, it's definitely an easy-going brew. Its oatmeal is delivered through the inclusion of flaked oats. These provide a grainy, well roasted, and earthy quality that adds a bit of charm.

While Eephus isn't perfect, it sure is a winner. Like its namesake, this brew is a strikeout pitch that has the potential to leave even veteran hitters whirling around harmlessly in the batter's box. Give me a bit more nutty oomph and a touch more boozy heat if you please, but even failing that, this beer is on the verge of being genuinely remarkable.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.

Moroccan Brown Ale

Toronto, Ontario’s Spearhead Brewing Company, makers of the really excellent Hawaiian Style Pale Ale, is also the force behind Moroccan Brown Ale. The 6% alcohol brew is sold in 355mL bottles, packs in a healthy 35 IBUs, and, according to the label (which features a belly dancer), it’s “brewed with raisins, dates, figs and cinnamon”. It calls itself a “Full-flavoured American style brown ale with a Moroccan accent”.

It’s a cloudy, ruddy brown brew, topped with very little tan head, owing to the instruction on the label to pour gently to prevent sediment from infiltrating the pint.  The aroma is rich in dried fruit, but also has some molasses and malt qualities. The flavor is less sweet than I expected. The dried fruit gives some character and sweetness, but this beer compensates with a decent bolt of hoppiness, particularly in the finish, which manages to be fairly dry. The flavor starts malty and features the aforementioned dried fruits. It has a bit of a fruitcake-y vibe.

 

The Moroccan Brown Ale is another example of Spearhead’s willingness to experiment with traditional beer styles. At 6%, this beer doesn’t taste its strength. Even so, it’s so full-bodied that I can’t imagine drinking more than one or two in an evening.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Grizzly Beer

Happy New Years from the Stout Man!

Grizzly Beer is a raunchy American Brown Ale brewed by my local brewery, the Bellwoods Brewery, located around the corner from my apartment in Toronto, Ontario. This saucy ale is sold in 650mL bottles and clocks in at a respectable 6.2% alcohol.

Murky and amber brown in colour, Grizzly Beer comes topped with a thick brown head. Its aroma is hoppy, hemp, and a little bit nutty. There's also a dollop of molasses somewhere in there. This is a brown ale with I.P.A. sensibilities. It's wonderfully hoppy, with a touch of spiciness, balanced against a stable malt foundation. There is a whisper of sweetness, but no more than that--molasses and brown sugar in miniscule doses.

Seemingly, everything that Bellwoods creates is a winner. Their Grizzly Beer, a charming ale, is certainly no exception. It's amply hopped, well fortified, and extremely tasty. I count it as one of my favourites in B.B.'s ever-expanding stable of brews.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.