Browns IPA

Brewed by Troy Pub & Brewery (Browns Brewing)
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Troy, New York USA

Serve in Shaker, Tulip

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My favourite in the Brown’s sampler mix. Promptly bought a pint right afterward! A bitter- citrus flavour lightens the hoppy "sting" on the tongue. Will definitely have this brew again!

on tap-pours a thin white head with cloudy yellow color. Aroma is faint hops. Taste is lots of biting tart hops, faint malt. Good carbonation.

Look is light orange with a honey colored shine. Puffy white head. Good lace. Lots of carbonation. Smell is bitterish woody hops with a wet almost amberish malt. Secondary flowery character in the hops. Hoppy as heck but also balanced. Taste is heavy hop flavor; butter but also a bit sweet. Starts off woody but then turns flowery. Creamy and smooth feel. Medium thickness. Leaves a bitter film. Overall it’s bitter and yet very drinkable. Nice and hoppy and a little malty.

I’m rather inclined to like this beer for reasons I won’t go into, but suffice it to say that IPAs in America have become a something of a frankenstein’s monster, and an IPA done simply and done well is nothing to scoff at.

Pours a very nice looking hazy amber with great lingering frothy head. honestly a very pretty pour of beer. taste is all hoppy bitterness with some grapefruit and malt backbone. its dry on the finish but much better ipa then i was expecting i’d have to say.

I recently commented that I was finally beginning to appreciate some of the subtler points of brewing after noticing a similarity between all the India Pale Ales I like. However, I’m also noticing a trend among those I dislike as well as the beers that fall somewhere in between the two. Brown’s India Pale Ale is a good example of these brews that fall between the cracks, so to speak. It has a good taste and composition overall, but I’ve had much better and can’t help but think this one could’ve been one of them.

POUR, COLOR AND AROMA

Brown’s pours very smoothly to a dark orange/light brown, cloudy body. It forms a perfectly-proportioned, foamy, off-white head that never dissipates and leaves quite a lot of lacing on the glass.

The aroma was strongly floral, which means it’s a heavily hopped beer. However, it didn’t have the citrus-like quality of a lot of my favorite IPAs and its scent is reminiscent of the syrup-like IPAs I have encountered.

TASTE

Not having tried anything from Brown’s Brewery I had no idea what to expect from their IPA. From the scent I was concerned this would be another butterscotch-flavored IPA like Sea Dog and Dogfish Head, but fortunately this was not the case.

My favorite types of IPAs tend to have a very tart, yet sweet and strongly bitter flavor. Brown’s didn’t necessarily fall into any of these categories, yet it wasn’t one of the syrupy IPAs I have encountered. It fell somewhere in between with a significant bitter taste but without the sweetness or tartness I look for in an IPA. In fact, its taste was almost salty or dirty in a way, but not nearly as bad as Harpoon’s IPA.

I have to give it credit for having such an original taste that’s difficult to classify, but I would have preferred something a little more delectable.

FINISH

Although Brown’s IPA had just the slightest bit of coarseness to its taste I have to admit it went down very smooth. I’ve found that even the most bitter IPAs tend to finish as clean as the lightest “lite” beer and Brown’s was no exception.

BODY

Had I known Brown’s IPA was as potent as it was, I might have proceeded with more caution before drinking it. This beer is 6.5% ABV, and likely 200 calories or more per serving (information not available on brewer’s website). Beers of the IPA style are usually a little more alcoholic than your mass-market lager, but drinking a bottle of this beer really overwhelmed me, not in terms of weight but in terms of potency.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I hate to criticize a hometown brew (Brown’s is located right across the Hudson River from me in Troy, NY), but I would have preferred a tastier, lighter IPA. This is a professional beer-drinker’s beer, which I appreciate as a connoisseur. However, I think Brown’s is adequate and could be enjoyed by those with less discriminating tastes than me.

A - Served a bright and slightly haze copper-orange color with a finger of frothy white head. The head reduced down to a spotty layer and a ring and left behind some nice lacing on the glass. S - Aroma has some nice pine hop aroma and a touch of caramel malts in the background. Touch of citrus hop also in the background. T - Starts off with some nice pine hop flavor and some caramel malt backbone. Touch of citrus hops also mixed in. Through the middle there is a bit more hop coming through. The finish has a blend of hops with some nice bitterness and a touch of sweet malt that lingers nicely. M - Medium bodied with moderate carbonation. There is nice dry finish at the end with the bitterness. Pretty crisp and refreshing. D - Very drinkable. Decent hop profile, but it could use a bit more of a punch for an IPA. Otherwise fairly well balanced, it a little tones down.

Pours a transparent dark copper amber with a stringy-lacing frothy white head. Aroma of lightly sweet caramely malt with a touch of grapefruity hops. Starts with good fullness and carbonation along with a light toasty malty sweetness and some slightly resiny citrus and piny hops before a smooth, bittersweet finish. Could use a little more hop bite, but still a pretty good IPA.

From mcox90 via trade. The pour was an attractive hazy orange color with a thick, almost creamy off-white head and really good lacing. The aroma was citrus and peach with some pine and spice coming out too. The flavor was citrus, resiny pine, spice and a bit of iced tea. Mouthfeel was thin to medium in body and slightly grainy a time or two. Nice, not great.

12oz bottle. Pours cloudy dark amber in color with white head. Aroma of light citrus hops and malt. Taste of hops and malt with bitter finsih. Very well balance for an IPA.