Avery - Ellie's Brown Ale

Today I'll be drinking Ellie's Brown Ale from Avery Brewing.  This is an American Brown Ale, known to be a good session brew at 5.5%ABV.  It's named after Avery's late chocolate lab that passed away in 2002.  The recommended food pairings for this brew are roasted, spicy meats and chipotle mole.

The label includes a picture of Ellie the chocolate lab.  Ellie kind of reminds me of my Doberman-Lab mix, Murphy.   Murphy is 'cute', but very very dumb (he acts sad when I say that, so I usually just call him 'special', that seems to please him).  He's regularly taunted by squirrels and crows, and although he thinks he's tough, he's not....and the Doberman coloring is just a big facade (picture below).   

This beer is a lot darker than I expected - it's a brown that wants to be black, but doesn't quite make it.  Some light gets through, just barely.  The pour leaves a nice inch of off-white head the leaves a decent amount of lacing behind.  The aroma, oddly enough, actually reminds me of a dog.  It's a musky, wet dog kind of smell right away.  There is a grainy, nutty aroma in there as well.  The taste starts with sweet, lightly burnt wheat bread.  Chewy, nutty, bready malts are followed by a nice, refreshingly light hop bitterness with a bit of pine that lightens those malts up a bit.  Nice smooth body with moderate carbonation.

Overall Rating:  (5.0 out of 6.0)  This brown ale really hit the spot tonight.  Despite my strange initial impression of the aroma, the beer was well balanced, nothing extreme....but I thought this was a nice example of the style. 


Murphy can't find his frisbee.