Back On The Brown Ales - Oh How I Missed Thee

This weeks post was meant to be my tutorial on making your own beer. Unfortunately, the house was in such a state last night when I planned to make my brew that I knew I would be pushing myself for time if I made videos and took photos of the process. In addition to cleaning everything. That's the thing with home-brew. A clean and sterile working environment is critical.

Fortunately, I had a beer in the fridge that I was keen to get stuck into. I've been drinking pale ales almost exclusively for the past couple of weeks so I couldn't resist popping the top on this American Brown Ale - brewed by the 2 chaps who created Black Heart Brewery. I'd link to their website, however it seems to be quite non-functioning, and has no content. So I suppose we'll just work off the info we can find elsewhere.

This is one interesting brewery, and I plan to do a review of the brewery itself after reading about how this place came into existence. The two brewers who own the place met while working in a hospital. One was a heart surgeon, and the other is a perfusionist.

If you're wondering what a perfusionist is, so did I. A perfusionist is is a healthcare professional who uses the cardiopulmonary bypass machine (heart–lung machine) during cardiac surgery (thanks Wikipedia). Since when did beer blogs become educational? Should this be a thing?

The beer of the day is Black Heart Brewery's American Brown Ale. This beer is described as being:

A big malt power house with strong American hop aroma and a decadent lick of chocolate and caramel. Beer that can pass for desert? Genius.
_{Source - the beer label}

This description is actually what convinced me to buy the beer. I love a good desert as much as I love beer (why do I own a gym again?). So being able to kill two birds with one stone sounded perfect to me.

Did someone order a beer that was all head?

Check out that head!? And this wasn't from an unskilled pour. I'm wondering if the beer was still fermenting in the bottle. Maybe someone more skilled at brewing might have more insight than me (@gmikeyg?).

After a while the beer calmed down (a little), although the head is a lingerer on this beer (obviously). I was eventually able to fill the glass, and actually experience the beer properly.

I really love a good quality brown ale, and despite the insane head, this is one of those. And the reviewers at Untappd (image below and to the right) seem to appreciate this beer as well. The beer is a lovely dark amber colour with strong notes of malts and hops on the nose. There were some mild hints of caramel on the nose as well however this was very understated.

The carbonation was decent, after the beer calmed down after that pour of course. Once you get past the head, you'll find that this is a very malty beer, which is how it is described. But unlike the description, this beer is not at all like a desert. There is a mild bitterness, lots of malts and hops, and some lingering aftertaste that includes caramel and bitter chocolate at random moments.

So my only complaint, other than that insane head, was that the beer didn't really match the description. But other than this, I really enjoyed this brown ale. It is definitely a quality brown ale that the brewers have spent a lot of time developing, and I'd definitely go back for a second (maybe not on the same night though, this beer comes in a 500ml bottle). So that's always a good sign.

I'll commit to visiting this brewery in the next couple of weeks to do a full brewery review. I might even drag the wife (@bluebellpossum) along again so that she can help write the review.

The Beer Data

Beer	Type	Origin	ABV	Rating
Black Heart Brewery American Brown Ale	Brown Ale	Brighton, VIC	5.6%	3.5

_{All ratings are out of 5}

Rating and Reviews at Untappd