Bottle. Pours a brown ruby color with a hefty white tan head. Wonderfully deep malt, toast, and hop aroma. Deep malt flavor fills out a medium body and leads into a slowly developing bitter finish. Not necessarily the traditional brown ale, but egads is this thing a nice change. The extra hops definitely add a nice element to the beer.

From bottle. Part of Dayton Beer Tasting event. Pours deep red/brown with light tan head. Aroma of hops, coffee and nuts. Taste follows the nose with some spice and earthy textures.

pours a very deep dark mahogony with notes of ruby. A nice crowning 1/4" of egg-shell colored head. Nice aroma of hops and some sort of underlining chocolate or even coffee bean. The first sip confirms the coffee and nice creamy rich fruity chocolatey malt. It’s a sweet combo that really works well with the hops. This is the only brown with any real hop flavor that I have had to date. This beer has a thickness not normally associated with a bruwn that isn’t a nut-brown. That thickness however does not stop this from being a very easy drinking brown.

Pours brown with a tan head. Aroma of nutty/earthy malts, abundant hops, and slight coffee hints. Taste was similar: very robust, earthy, and nutty.

I would never go so far as to say that Dogfish Head is the most extreme and creative craft brewery currently in the market. I see other craft breweries put out crazy, wild, extreme, and very deliciously exciting beers. But, I would say that the difference is that off-centered ales for off-centered people is the very credo and motto upon which Dogfish Head was created and by which it still lives today. They don’t release the occasional extreme brew once or twice a year; instead, every beer they release is their extreme and intensely flavored versions of that traditional style. More often than not, they do so with great success and have brought many an eye-opening experience to my lips to further spoil my tastebuds and my palate. One of their year-round offers is the Indian Brown Ale, a dark, thick, and chewy brown ale. <br /> My Indian Brown Ale poured with a miniscule head but a hugely dense, thick, and brownish-black into my glass, daring any light to try and peek through. Immediately a rich, sweet and malty nose wafts my way with huge notes of chocolate, molasses, and caramelized sugars. A faint earthen finish hints of wood barrels and smoke. Though she had little head to speak of, she does swirl and poof upon command, leaving traces of lace to mark her territory. My first quaff is thick and lusciously sweet with a mouth-sticking viscosity which proudly represents the thick pour and nose I had just previously basked in. Sweet and smooth milk chocolate greets me first, followed by a procession of fresh nuts, molasses, brown sugars, and some warm smoked wood notes. As she warms, she bitters up a bit with more prominent hints of darker chocolates and coffee. I definitely recommend enjoying the Indian Brown Ale after she has had a few minutes to settle into room temperature versus refrigerator temperature. For such a heavy brown ale, she maintains a very balanced palate which finishes pleasantly dry with faint chocolate esters. <br /> An excellent heavy brown ale with a solid personality, she backs down for no one person or critic. She is meant to be sipped and savored, though that minor fact wouldn’t keep me from enjoying a couple at a time. Even though the Indian Brown Ale came long before the Palo Santo Marron, I can see the faint beginnings of the inspiration which led brewmaster and founder Sam Calagione to the Palo Santo. I hear some very rare wood was also involved, but that is a store for another time. Once more, I tip my hat to Dogfish Head in respectful satisfaction.