Goose Island Nut Brown Ale

Brewed By: Goose Island Beer Company (owned by AB InBev) in Chicago, Illinois

Purchased: Single, 12oz bottle, from a 6-pack bout at Jewel in Chicago, IL; 2012

Style/ABV: English Brown Ale, 5.3%

Today I'm drinking a beer that I haven't had for a several years. The last time I had this beer, I was a beer noobie on the fringe of craft beer. At this point in time, I've experienced quite a variety of Brown Ales, and I feel fairly comfortable talking about the style.

Before I start I want to get the style guideline stuff out of the way. Goose Island's Nut Brown Ale is a "Northern English Brown Ale". It's a pedantic definition for sure (the BJCP notes stylistic differences between Brown Ales from the northern vs. southern region of London), and you can simplify the style to "English Brown Ale," like both Ratebeer and BeerAdvocate have done. If you are wondering what differentiates an English Brown Ale from an American Brown Ale: my answer would be "the hops."

So for simplicity sake (I may elaborate on the history of the Brown Ale at some further point in time), we can say this is an "English Brown Ale." Surprisingly, I have not reviewed any English Brown Ales thus far. I have only danced with American Browns on this blog. The BJCP gives some notable commercial examples of Northern English Browns. Some of those include: Newcastle Brown Ale, Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale, Wychwood Hobgoblin, and today's beer, the Goose Island Nut Brown Ale. This style of beer should have a toffee/nutty/caramel aroma, with some light UK hops. This beer should have malt sweetness in the taste, some nuttiness, a little caramel, and a medium-dry to dry finish. For reference, this is drier and more hop-oriented beer (and highlights a nutty character rather than caramel) compared to the Southern English Brown style.

With that out of the way, let's talk about Goose Island and let's talk about their Nut Brown Ale. 

Goose Island is a Chicago-based brewery that began as a brewpub on Clybourn, which opened on May 1988. The actual brewery opened on 1995, and is located on the Southwest side of Chicago. The second brewpub, located in Wrigleyville by the Chicago Cubs, was opened in 1999. On March 28, 2011, Goose Island sold 58% of the brewery to Anheuser-Busch. The remaining 42% of the brewery is supposed to be acquired by A-B InBev in the future, and there has been much discussion about the brewery's takeover.

If you cruise over to the Nut Brown Ale page on Goose Island's website, you can find some info about the beer. This is one of their "classic" beers that has been around for a long time; as of 2012, this beer has been available since March. I believe this beer was not in production last year, due to limited brewery availability. The beer is described as using domestic and imported malts to provide subtle notes of chocolate, honey, and fine tobacco. The finish is described as "nutty." This beer is brewed with 2 Row, Caramel, Wheat, Dark Chocolate, and Victory malts; and UK Fuggle (mild, pleasant, hoppy, and robust) and Willamette (mild, pleasant, slightly spicy, floral, fruity, and earthy) hops. This beer clocks in at 5.3% ABV, and packs 25 IBUs. With all of that said, let's pop this open and see how it stacks up. Review:

The beer pours with 3 to 4 fingers worth of thick/foamy head that is khaki/tan in color. There is almost a finger's worth of thick heading hanging around, and it is made up of moderate sized bubbles. I'm getting a little lacing as the head pulls away. The body of the beer is a dark red/brown color, depending on how you hold it up to light. It looks to be filtered, and although I cannot see through the beer, it has a slight transparency to it. I'm guessing low to medium carbonation. A final note (and I think I mentioned this in the past): I love the Goose Island bottle caps. They are aesthetically wonderful.

Goose Island Nut Brown Ale

The aroma on this is light, and malty. I'm pulling out sweet malts, sweet caramel, hints of a chocolate-like note, maybe some of that honey they advertise, and maybe a hint of mild and earthy hops.

The taste is pretty good. Up front you get caramel and toffee, the middle is sweet with some caramel, the back palate is slighty toast, with a lingering nutty note. The finish is slightly toasted with even a hint of roast, and dry. I taste caramel, some earthy hops, sweet caramel, a hint of fruit (berries or something sweet), and a nice rounding out with that toast/roast and nuttiness.

Despite being dark in appearance, Brown Ales are intended to be easily consumed. At 5.3% ABV, this is pushing the limits of a session beer (especially if you're a Brit). But this has a medium-light body, with moderate carbonation, deep palate depth for the style, moderate complexity for the style, and huge drinkability. I could easily drink a few of these in a sitting. Up front you get those sweet malts: caramel and toffee (even some hints of chocolate pop in and out), hints of honey; the middle remains sweet with caramel and maybe honey; the back palate hits you with that roast/toast, and it dries up a bit, and the finish rounds out with lingering nuttiness.

Rating: Above-Average

Score: 81%

 

There's not a ton to say about this beer. This is a superbly drinkable and balanced English Brown. The toasted character on the back end, followed by the nuttiness, really takes this beer to the next level. But otherwise, while I find this to do very well with the style, this isn't blowing my mind.

I will say that this is a lot more desirable than Newcastle, and the Nut Brown Ale is just as available (in the Chicago-land area) and actually may cost less. In that situation, I would take this beer every time. I wish Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale wasn't so expensive, because I actually really enjoy that beer. I always feel kind of bad buying Goose Island beers these days, now that they are owned by AB InBev. Still...this is a really good beer, an inexpensive beer, and a beer that is worth trying at least once. With that said, cheers.