100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #21

Posted on April 28, 2009 by Chris Lumens in .

Smuttynose 2007 Really Old Brown Dog

I bought this bottle of Really Old Brown Dog a couple years ago because I liked the name and put it in my kitchen beer rack to see what it’d end up tasting like. Two years later and having no other new beers in the house, I threw it in the fridge for later. The bottle was so old that it still had dust on it. I hoped the age wouldn’t detract but being part of the Big Beer Series, I figured it could do with a little aging.

It poured a nice deep brown color with a good head. I used one of my Starobrno mugs that I brought back from my time in the Czech Republic. At first sniff, I was a little apprehensive as it reminded me of a homebrew experiment gone wrong that I ended up dumping down the drain. David Cantrell will remember that as he got the dubious pleasure of getting to taste my Delerium Tremens clone attempt.

Any apprehension I felt was soon replaced by revulsion as I took a sip. I was smacked in the face with unrelenting malt, caramel, and an overpowering sweetness. The aftertaste contained yet more of the sweetness followed by astringency like what you feel on your tongue from drinking tea. It was so unpleasant that I actually found myself not wanting to take another drink. Several minutes later, I came back and tried again and again I got all the same unpleasant flavors. So, I poured it down the drain. I don’t really have much more to say about individual characteristics of the taste as I was busy trying to forget how much I disliked it.

Did the age ruin this bottle? I don’t know, but I don’t think I want to try. Smuttynose makes a whole lot of beers I enjoy, but this is definitely not one of them.

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