Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale
550mL bottle, $3.89 at the Beverage King in West Lebanon NH. Poured into a chilled pint glass. Reddish brown mahogany brew, 1 finger of ecru head settles to whisps and large bubbles. Huge nose of bread pudding, apple cider, yeast, raw malt, slight banana ester. Very raw smelling, as if it were still fermenting. Taste is unexpected, dominated by fruit juice... apple cider and grape juice. Actually, it reminds me very much of the catawba grape wines I've had in the Finger Lakes. Behind that is a moderate backbone of malt that gives it the mouthfeel of a beer. Also detect caramel, melon, citrus. Grape wine lingers in the aftertaste. Nothing at all like I expected. Very surprising, but not necessarily bad. Trying to wrap my head around it. I'll have to get another bottle in order to see if this is a fluke. If it isn't I'll enjoy the weirdness again. EDIT: got a second bottle from a different store (so more likely to be from a different batch). This time around the brew lacks the huge fruity aspects I noted before. Instead, it has a sour edge to it with S/T notes of walnut or hazelnut. Much more like a brown ale than before, more like what I expected. Seems to be some significant variation between bottles/ batches.