Rock Bottom Brown Bear Brown

Draught at the Campbell location. They describe this as a brown porter, and I don’t really disagree with that assessment, though it is definitely on the edge of brown ale as far as the style goes. Dark brown color with a lasting light beige head. Dark bread crust and light chocolate aroma, with a light toasty grain quality and some caramel. The flavor is on the sweet side and has light chocolate and dark toast. A bit flabby overall. Med-light body with a smooth texture that hits the mark. Goes down easy, with a decent balance, but pretty bland overall.

Location: I venture into the Rock Bottom Bethesda every now and again because it is so close, this is one of their standard offerings, and I’ve had it a few times on tap

Overall Impression: Another dull beer from Rock Bottom, they make a lot of OK beers. Standard and boring Brown Ale.

Draft. Bethesda location. Mahogony brown beer with a light tan head. Rich malt aroma. Caramel malt flavor with light frutiiness. Medium bodied. Caramel malt lingers with a bit of dark fruit.

Pretty standard brown ale for the style. Pours the color of crap with a small beige head. Malty aroma. Flavor is malty, some sweet caramel malt and some roasted. A little more thin-bodied than I’d like.

4-23-08 tap
Dark brown pour with some head and lacing. Smell is roasted sweet generic malt. Flavor is actually decent malt - or at least it has some flavor which I havent picked up on much with the others. Palate is thin but not out of character here.

Pours dark brown to black with a light tan head. Smell is really nice and roasty with light coffee and chocolately notes. Taste is roasty and coffee like maltiness but thin, like most of the regular offerings. Light bitter roasty cocoa powder finish. Still a good brown, all around.

On cask. Dark brown pour with creamy tan head. Smooth malty aroma, creamy velvet texture with tones of roasted chocolate. Very smooth and drinkable, creamy lightly hopped chocolaty finish. Quite good but not too complex and could have more flavor. If it weren’t on cask I think it would lose at least half a point, but the silky texture really complements this well

Draft sampler, Chicago. Again, this is NOT a "standard" recipe. The Chicago version uses wheat and oats in the malts, and specifies Williamette and Chinkook hops. That said, Pete Crowley’s version is a deep, porterish brown, with a brown skin of foam. Smooth nitro type texture brings out nutty, slightly over-toasted malts.