The Great Big Kentucky Sausage Fest
Brewery: Amager/Against the Grain
Type: American Brown Ale
Alcohol: 7.7%
Country: Denmark/USA
This is one of the beers released for Amerikaner (American) day at Amager Bryghus. This just so happened to be on my birthday. I was very happy to buy every single bottle as it seemed a sign from the beer gods that I must review these beers. Now I am finally getting around to it, after getting them two weeks ago. Now I bought these bottles on the day in Copenhagen, but they have since made it to my city of Odense. My local bar Christian Firtal served it, and made me a bit nervous when it was described that patrons were having a difficulty with it as it looked like "dirty dishwater". Well I just cracked my bottle and lets see if this beer should have gone the same way as the dishwater.
Pours a very cloudy, chunky medium brown. Massive amounts of yeast and hop chunks in suspension make this murky as hell. I can certainly see where the analogy to dirty dish water came from. Nice big off white head, dissipates back into a film across the top of the beer leaving a nice curtains. (this also doesn't help the dishwater image) The smell is heaped high with coffee and chocolate malts, sweet maltiness combines with a drizzle of fresh citrus from the big mass of hops in here. Traces of caramel and roasted nuts make this smell like the window of a cake shop exploded. This is a highly hopped brown, a mix of traditional east kent goldings, but then an orgy of American cascade, simcoe, and tomahawk is sure to make this an interesting tasting brew. This beer starts out as your standard brown ale (American leaning). Dark biscuity breadiness meets big espresso and chocolate. No matter how many hops are listed on the label this is a malt forward beer. The hops make an appearance as a blast of bright citrus in the aftertaste, and of course the bitterness. The bitterness is big and lasting. I like the way the big malt taste and big hop bitterness war with each over for the dominance in the aftertaste. Has a nice full mouthfeel with a just massive lasting bitter aftertaste. I have seen some muddled reviews of this on untappd and the such. It is certainly an experimental beer. This is what I expect when two brewers get together to make a beer, something interesting and out of the ordinary. This beer reminds me of an India Brown Ale I brewed, that happens to be one of my favorite homebrews. Maybe this has skewed my review, but I like this beer. Dirty dishwater and heavy handed hopping aside I enjoyed drinking this, and would have it again. Might pick up a few bottles of this just to screw with my friends who like those boring sweet browns.
P.S.
Since these are Danish American collaboration beers, be sure to check the Danish beer blog Stovt's review of this same beer.
