Hook and Ladder Backdraft Brown Ale

Hook and Ladder Brewing Company
Brewed at Genesee Brewing Company
Style: Brown Ale
Silver Spring, Maryland USA

Serve in Dimpled mug

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12 oz bottle, from Duvel tulip, at cellar temp. Pours a dark brown, ruby red against the light. Aggressive pour produced a medium tan head, which left decent lacing. Aromas of roasted malt, a touch of licorice, with an herbal hoppy note. Medium body; thin texture, almost wants to be creamy but fails; sharp fizzy carbonation. Flavors are salty and bitter; finish starts with a chemical bitterness and ends with a sweet undertone. Overall, it’s rather artificial. Oh hey, this is my 100th rating! If I’d have known, I would have opened a better beer! Oh well.

Brown, as you might expect. Splotchy white head. Smells like brown sugar and a bit of coffee. Flavor is brown sugar on toast. Dryish finish.

Roasted peanuts, sweet and salty aroma. Flavors of caramel, toasted bread, cherries and a hint of vanilla. Wet paper and watery finish. Plays it safe and doesnt really grab an interest.

Reviewed from notes. Served in a pint glass. Color is a moderately-dark brown with a tan head that persists for a bit before falling. Nose is quite plain with a bit of caramel and bread. The taste is bready with some light sweetness. Decent body with normal carbonation levels. Really just don’t have too much to say about this one. Serving type: bottle Reviewed on: 11-14-2010

Too watery for the style, a slightly malty and pretty watery flavor does not do this style justice, there are way too many other examples in this style that do that.

12 oz bottle. Poured brown with a small head. Aroma was nice: malt, sweet, maybe some mild fruit. Taste really falls short: water, muddled malts, faint nut. Thinnish body. No real depth there. Overall: the nose was nice but the taste was very detached and lost.

Brown w/ off-white head. Big sweet malt and toffee aroma. Taste: Some toasty malt, caramel, chocolate and a little nutty. Not as sweet as the aroma hints at. Smooth and drinkable. Very nice brown.

Decent sized light brown head of fine bubbles. Strange sweet vegetal aroma. Some light roasted malts, bananas and bread. Color is a medium brown with a hint of red. Rather bland flavor with more sweet malts and a milky mouthfeel. Not very positive on this one.

This beer struck me as odd, even for this style. Unusually sour, unusually heavily-carbonated, and unusually thin. Besides these three qualities, which caught me off guard, I found this to be a pleasing beer. It’s a bit sweet for my tastes, but typically I dislike sweetness most when it’s paired with heaviness, and this beer’s thin body made the sweetness less unpleasant. One thing I really like about this beer is that it has a more bitter finish; there’s a little more roast in the finish as well. Bottom line? Average overall, although with many non-average characteristics, just that the good and the bad balance out.

On draft @ The Red Porch at a Nationals game. Dark brown pour. Aroma was sweet, somewhat nutty. Flavors were sweet malts, some hazelnut and not much else. Pretty thin body, watery. Not terrible by any means but I wouldn’t order another one. It’s always nice to try some local stuff.

There’s something strange going on with this beer. Smells off, tastes off, but I’m sure that’s how it is supposed to be.