Beer: The Tasting

OK. So? I’m impatient. So I opened a bottle of Browncoat before Sunday. So what?

In my defense I have five people coming over for dinner on Sunday. Coming primarily to partake in the homebrew. Now wouldn’t it be a shame if those folks arrived and the homebrew was, say,

flat or something like that? Yes, it would be very tragic indeed. So there was nothing for it but to try the beer in advance in case it was necessary to purchase other beverages for the guests.

The verdict? Eh. It’s a lovely brew, don’t get me wrong. But pretty only gets a beer so far in this world and then it has to stand on its own two feet. Unfortunately, where this beer is concerned, those feet are fairly clumsy and pigeon-toed.

It’s not that it’s bad. No, not bad in the least. It has flavor which means it beats most American mass-produced lagers without even trying. But it’s just… I dunno… Too sweet and lacking in depth. The finish is almost watery. None of this adds up to a great beer. Perhaps my SG really was at 1.020. That would explain the sweetness. If that’s the case, then the yeast would have died young (more’s the pity), its role in life yet unfulfilled. I’m not sure. But rest assured that I’ll be grabbing a bottle and taking it to The Beverage People{.associate.met.broken_link} in Santa Rosa and having them put their big beer brains to the task of figuring out what went wrong. And probably convincing me to buy more stuff while I’m there.

So, bottom line: Browncoat Ale is passable but does not quite cross the line into “good” territory. I’ll still serve it to my guests and they, being the polite people that they are, will say that it’s great even if they don’t really mean it.