What Can Brown Do For You?

Like my West Coast colleague, I found it hard to deny that Autumn is really here. The mercury is falling, students are once again crawling over Boston, and my fantasy football team is screwed after week 1 (seriously? Losing by 2.5 points? I hate you Tony Gonzalez). It's definitely autumn again.

Oktoberfests are generally darkish lagers, but being an Ale-man myself, I went with the Sierra Nevada Tumbler Autumn Brown. It seems that Mr. West Coast is nosing in on the East Coast with a review of Dogfish Head. Right back atcha, buddy.

So yeah, this Tumbler Autumn Brown. I'm generally a Sierra Nevada fan. I like their Pale Ale. I like their Porter. I've even enjoyed their Celebration ales. And this one held such promise. It poured a nice and dark chestnut, with a deep and very long-lasting head. Oddly, there wasn't much of an aroma, but initial sips brought out some really deep roasted malt flavor. It was almost salty on the tongue, with smooth sipping and unobtrusive carbonation.

You can already see the aggressive carbonation. Honestly, I tend to pour violently in order to get a nice thick head (which tends to release a lot of beautiful aroma), so I figured I'd gotten it all out of the beer. How wrong I was...

At least, I thought it was unobtrusive. Turns out, the bubbles, for some reason, don't fully effervesce out of the beverage until it is safely locked inside one's stomach. This leads to tremendous discomfort as one inflates from the inside. Like a time-release capsule, or the beer equivalent of a double-action baking powder. One release of, well, gas in the beginning; then a second release when it's a little less welcome.

So yes. Delicious, but it made my tummy hurt. I think this is probably better on tap: that way, the carbonation gets out of the way early and harmlessly.

I also tried the Brooklyn Oktoberfest, and I'm sad to say it's not fabulous. It's nice and sort of chewy at first, with a really nice depth of toasty amber flavor. And then halfway down the pint, when it starts to warm up, citrus and bitter notes push to the fore, which are also quite welcome. Unfortunately, toward the end, the alcohol harshness took over and it got tremendously sour and unpleasant. So there you have it - 3 beers in one, two of which are pretty good, and one that sucks.

I'll be taking the suggestion in the last post and trying some of the Dogfish Head Punkin Ale soon. Fingers crossed...