Saturday, November 7, 2009

Harpoon Brown Session Ale

Harpoon is more well known for their Leviathan series and IPA, or so I feel, so I wanted to explore a couple of Harpoon's other brews. This brown ale is one of the next few beers I'll review that my girlfriend dumped on me after her Halloween party. I figured this would be a good way to go through them all.

Appearance: Has a rich brown color, clean and clear, and has a thin layer of head. Also a steady stream of carbonation bubbles rising from the bottom.

Smell: A nice mixture of nutty, caramel, and sweet malts with almost no hoppiness in the scent, pretty typical of other brown ales, but there is some other sweet scent in there that kind of separates it from the rest, I just can't put my finger on it. Maybe a little taste will clear this mystery up.

Taste: Nope, in fact a lot of the malt scents disappear in the flavor, or become muted. There is some nuttiness and some slight caramel sweetness, but without the same intensity from the aroma. Really not as intriguing as the smell would suggest.

Mouthfeel: A little thin and watery, light bodied, a tiny bit of alcohol on the aftertaste, but you have to be searching for it. There is a little bit of a hop bitterness bite as it approaches room temperature.

Drinkability: For transparency, I must admit that brown ales are not my cup of tea. This is a drinkable brew however, at only 4.3% abv you could probably finish off a six pack and be ready for more. There were some really deep aromas that made me a little excited to drink this beer, but it was a little misleading as the taste wasn't a true complement. All in all, a pretty good beer that I wouldn't completely avoid. 7/10

Serving type: Bottle
Glass type: Sam Adams glass

1 comment:

Jimmy said...

You sound like Sarah "dumping" beer on you is a bad thing?!?! Lay all the beer that you got on me honey, especially this Harpoon because you could so be ready for more for sure after a six pack! I don't like Brown Ales that much easier...somebody please find one that I would enjoy!!