Sam's Wicked Ale: Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale

A few months ago, I sampled a nut brown ale from South Shore Brewery which lies up north on the shore of Lake Superior. Founded in 1995, it's an elder statesman of the Wisconsin craft brewing scene and that they merrily brew a nut brown ale for year-round consumption might make one believe they are stuck in the mid-1990s. Those were the days before the ascendancy of the IPA and there was only a handful of Citra hop plants in the whole world and they were hidden away at a top secret lupulin lab somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. It would be years before American craft brewers innovated by adding Butterfinger candy bars to their brews and laughed all the way to the bank as some cans of their fruited beers exploded. Brown ales were quite popular, e.g. – Pete's Wicked Ale, and I reminisced in my post about drinking them with some frequency.

Over the past several months, I've found myself seeking out imported beers so I can compare and contrast them with their American analogues. Most recently, I tried a Baltic porter from the country that invented it, Poland, after having had a local one that didn't appeal to me. It has become more difficult to find a variety of imported beers here in Madison. Cooler space devoted to them has noticeably declined and been given over to crafty domestic beers, hard seltzers, et al. Finding a Gose brewed in Germany is, perhaps, all but impossible in this town. I don't see any Fuller's to be had either. Back in the spring I did not see a single Maibock that was brewed in Germany. Maybe I am simply going to the wrong liquor stores.Thankfully there is one nut brown ale from the UK that I have seen around town: the one from Samuel Smith Old Brewery.

In an age when drinking Sierra Nevada Pale Ale almost makes me feel like a monk of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, Samuel Smith's may come across like that poindexter of a co-worker many of us have who spends their weekends at SCA events. But, while many American craft brewers invoke age-old traditions in their marketing materials as they click a button to brew a batch, the folks at Samuel Smith's take tradition quite seriously, if their marketing materials, a.k.a. – webpage, is anything to go by.

The brewery was founded in 1758 and it looks like their labels were last updated around the time of The Charge of the Light Brigade. Beer is still delivered around the brewery's hometown, Tadcaster, via a wagon drawn by draft horses. (I don't know how to pronounce "Tadcaster" – it's probably Tad-kuh-sheer – but I always think of electric guitars when I see it. I envision some guy clad in powdered wig and tights jamming on "Greensleeves".) They proudly proclaim that they use slate squares instead of stainless steel for much of their fermentation, use a 19th century yeast strain, and have a full-time cooper.

Information about Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale is not exactly easy to come by. Most sites I've found merely repeat the brewery's description. I did, however, find one site that claims it was first brewed around 1900. With Tadcaster being in northern England, I suppose this beer counts as a Northern Brown Ale. The major difference between the northern and southern varieties appears to be sweetness with brewers in the south preferring more caramel flavor. One site lists Sam Smith's and Newcastle's Brown Ale as examples of the boreal brown. I believe these are the only brown ales from the UK regularly available here in Madison which means the southern flavor goes unrepresented in these parts.

My vigorous poor produced a big, off-white head of loose foam. This nut brown was clear and colored a gorgeous deep copper. I spied a fair number of bubbles inside. I immediately smelled caramel with a large dose of pecan right behind it. Underneath all of that my nose caught a faint earthy-herbal hoppiness with "herbal" meaning something in the same ballpark as mint/pine.

This is one of those classic beers that is happy to defy your expectations. With such a dark color, one might think it'd be on the heavy side and rather sweet but this was not the case. It had a medium-light body and, while there was a little caramel taste to be had, it was not particularly sweet. Instead, the flavor featured a rich, earthy nuttiness which was complemented by some nice fizz and more of that vaguely minty hop taste. I also discerned a faint fruitiness in the background.

The caramel and nutty flavors seeped away after I swallowed leaving the hops to take on a slightly sharper taste. I would describe the resulting bitterness and dryness as being in the medium range.

This is an effin' great beer! More dry than sweet with that rich nutty taste and those herbal hops. I had a flashback to the mid-90s at the Come Back In here in Madison. With a rather light body and 5% A.B.V., it is a fitting brew for most any occasion. And those English hop flavors – we need more of those. What a shame they've fallen so far out of favor here.

Junk food pairing: To go with your Nut Brown Ale, bust open a bag of Krunchers! Sweet Hawaiian Onion Kettle Cooked Potato Chips. Hawaii is an island just like England so you know they go well together.

Little Sir Bohn and His Nut Brown Bowl: Nut Brown Ale by South Shore Brewery

While it might simply be my brain doing a spot of fabulating here, I recall drinking a fair amount of brown ale from Ol' Blighty at the Come Back In, a tavern here in Madison, back in the mid to late 90s. And my recollection is that I generally reserved my encounters with Newcastle Brown Ale and Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale for those nights spent at the Come Back. Alas, my memory of why these particular bouts with John Barleycorn were usually done there is lacking. Perhaps it was simply availability. Or maybe it was about finding contrast with the boots of Helles quaffed next door at Essen Haus.

Regardless of my motivation, those ales were tasty and I felt it was really neat to be drinking beers that were direct descendants of brews of the Middle Ages. I mean, John Barleycorn had his nut brown bowl and that song was hundreds of years old, right? This was a beer with heritage! Wasn't John Locke sipping on a nut brown ale at his local tavern while arguing with fellow patrons about the right and true relationship between the governed and their government? Did Jeremy Bentham not have a pint of the stuff before him as he lectured John Stuart Mill on the utility of felicific calculus? Was nut brown ale not one of the primary fuels of the Enlightenment?!

Well, no it wasn't. According to classic punk afficionado and beer historian Ron Pattinson, nut brown ale is an invention of the early 20^th century.

Ooops!

But, while the beer style is relatively new, the term "nut brown ale" used for marketing purposes dates back further. I can try to console myself at having my illusions shattered by imagining Arthur Conan Doyle with a pint of it as he brought Sherlock Holmes to life. Or perhaps that it was favored by Emmeline Pankhurst as she argued in favor of women's suffrage, pointing out that the esteemed philosopher Jeremy Bentham had promoted the idea 100+ years before so what was taking so long?

Not too long ago I wrote about Rhoades' Scholar Stout by South Shore Brewery. I surely noted therein that the brewery, located on the shores of Lake Superior, regularly ships two beers down here to Madison. Now the identity of the second brew can finally be revealed! Wait. Never mind. I mentioned in that very post that their Nut Brown Ale was also found here in these southern parts.

So what is a nut brown ale?

I am unsure, to put it mildly. English beer styles are largely a mystery to me. One day I'll read some of Martyn Cornell's books but, until then, inexhaustive internet searches will have to suffice.

From what I gather, "nut brown ale" at least began as a description of color before moving on to having something to do with flavor. No doubt American and English variations differ in subtle and, perhaps, not to subtle ways. There also appears to be regional variation in England with northern and southern varieties being the most prominent. The more I read about it, the more complicated it gets. All of these brown ales and some of them aren't even brown. A bit more sweetness here, more dryness there. It's a really Daedalian maze of shades of brown, alcohol content, locale, et al.

Let's just investigate South Shore's take on the style, shall we?

English beers are often stereotyped as being flat and this one did nothing to dispel the image. My pour produced no head and there were just a few bubbles to be seen inside the glass. The liquid was brown, albeit with a slight red tint, which makes it a dark amber, I suppose, and clear. It smelled of roasted grain, some caramel, a little stone fruit, and, dare I say, a bit of nut.

Just a hint of fizz to be had on a sip. Some roasted grain and chocolate were also there. Either dark milk chocolate or milky dark chocolate. Also, some plum, although this was not a particularly sweet beer. Finally, there was some nuttiness. Think of a nice bread that was made with flax and sunflower seeds - a bit like that. I found that the roasted grain flavor lingered on the finish as a mild herbal hoppiness kicked in lending a touch of bitterness and a very mild dryness.

This is a very tasty beer. Nutty and mild, with a nice smoothness. (Look ma! No fizz!) I enjoyed the restrained sweetness and medium-light body which helped it go down easily. The nutty flavor and the herbal hoppiness are fairly uncommon in today's craft beer world and so they were an extra tasty treat for me. More of those please! It's 5.8% A.B.V. which seems a bit more potent than its English cousins.

Finally I want to say good on South Shore for an IPA-light set of offerings and instead giving us Madisonians a fine nut brown and a tasty stout instead.

Junk food pairing: Complement the nutty flavors of Nut Brown Ale with a bag of parmesan & garlic potato chips. Can't go wrong with Old Dutch, I say!