The Elf on the Beer Shelf is back!
That nutty buddy of mine, Bud the Elf on the beer shelf, shows up on Christmas day and makes his preference clear. Looks like a Chestnut brown is going down. Chestnuts r’oasting in a brewhouse kettle, Jack Frost nowhere to be seen, It doesn’t much matter what you’re dreaming of, this Christmas has been very green.
But Bud wasn’t the only elf that got into my beer fridge recently. It seems those crafty grandkids took to bejeweling and bedazzling my brews with some beer bottle bling for a Christmas surprise. That’s a six pack that the Beach Ball Fitness Program™ just can’t create.
Beer Bottle Bling
In the House of Oast with a Brown Ale toast. This deep dark downtown brown is keeping it’s head down. Oast tell us that 50 pounds of local hand-shelled and roasted chestnuts from the Grimo Nut Nursery have gone into the mix for what could well be the nuttiest brown yet.
An aroma of malt toffee and nut on the nose. First taste yields a watery malt, nutty for sure, with some toffee in there but no sweet, a bit of fizz too. Nice smooth full flavoured, a light mouthfeel for such a complex brown. Maybe a bit of nutty sweet and bitter have combined, is such a thing possible? They say opposites attract, but they never made it clear what they attract. And who is “they” by the way?* Back to this brown. A complex taste to start with but it begins to evolve into a nut fest. The toffee takes a hike, my sweet is gone, was it something I said? Did the 50 pounds of chestnuts end up in this can? Now the sweet and toffee come back and with them some balance again.
The end result is a nice old style English brown. The nuts took over for a while,** but the other flavour features came back for a balanced, full flavoured but still nutty brown.
Here’s wishing that your chestnuts are warm and your beer is cold and you had a Merry Christmas.
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