beer_name: Hale's O'Brien's Harvest Ale
text: Whoa, if that ain't the brownest, darkest harvest ale I've ever come across. Seriously, looks like a brown ale or a porter. Further surprising me, that this is classified as an apa. . . nothing pale about this one. Aroma actually was some peat and cocao just as much as hop bitterness. A decent amount of hops here, as far as wet or fresh hops go, this one doesn't really have much of a green hoppy vibe going for it, but that could be substantially covered up by the generous amount of brown and/or chocolate malt, not to mention the toffee and caramel presence. Really walks the line between a black and brown ale that is on hop roids. Bits of peat feel, make it further convuluted as like a fresh hop scotch ale. For the a little bit of everything approach, it kinda works, far from a abject failure of a beer, its kind of a off the beaten path type of harvest ale. Worth checking out.