Skagit River “Steelie” Brown Ale

Tonight’s beer comes to us from a Skagit River Brewery in Mount Vernon, WA.  It was consumed at Sockeye’s Restaurant and Bar in good ol’ Monroe, WA (about 4 minutes from my house).  More and a picture below.

Skagit River “Steelie” Brown Ale was on tap and looked interesting, so I gave it a try as my second beer of the night.  As you can see, it is a dark amber colored beer… not really brown. :)  It had a good head and a good nose on it with the smell of slightly roasted malt.  The taste was slightly hoppy with a bunch of malt to finish it off.  The taste was deep and rich… good in the mouth.  Where this one didn’t make it on my list, though, was the finish.  The finish was too bitter… bad taste bitter, not Flemish Ale bitter, and it left me wanting to munch on something to mask it.  Maybe better with food at the table, but I wouldn’t get it again just at the bar.

Below is a view of the choices at Sockeye’s.  Not a bad one at all.  And the best part… $3 pints during happy hour!

JBB6 Rating: Middle of the Road

Hazelnut Brown Nectar

Ahh, lunch in the Issaquah Brewhouse… halfway through a very decent Kobe burger (great wasabi relish, fries a bit cold) something bad happened. My glass was empty! I was out of beer! Luckily, the menu was close to hand and a glowing pint of Rogue’s Hazelnut Brown Nectar was soon in front of me.

I wanted to say a foaming mug, but what little head this started off with soon disappeared. Nevertheless, it’s appropriately named, for it does smell nutty and indeed looks brown, with a ruby-red tinge if you hold it up to the light. It also tastes brown, in a very good way - not sure if they throw some kind of nut extract in here, but to my tongue at least it tastes good. As the nectar part of the name suggests, it’s fairly sweet too, but not overpoweringly so.

I don’t think I could go a whole session just drinking these, but for the occasional pint it’s certainly one I’d pick up again.

JBB6 Rating: Will Buy Again

Big Sky Brewing Moose Drool

I first tasted Moose Drool over at the Tap House Grill in Bellevue, where I managed to slup my way through six or seven different beers in the course of an hour and where, I’m afraid to say, it lodged in my mind mainly because of it’s faintly revolting name.

When I saw it in Trader Joe’s last wekeend, I knew I had to have another bash - and as the handy six-pack was on special, it would have been churlish to refuse. Wanting to give no man a reason to call me “churl”, I took some home. Where I proceeded to drink almost all of it.

Good beer. Not amazing, outstanding or wonderful beer, but good in a solid, honest, long-legged, slightly stupid kind of way. Brown as a nut, with a milk-chocolate head and an honest earthy taste with just enough hops to stay bitter and a hint of malt, this has been my beer of the week - I keep going back to get more, and I think this’ll be one of the staples of the summer.

Thanks Big Sky Brewing, you’re my new regular thing!

JBB6 Rating: Will Buy Again