Georgia Brown - Sweetwater Brewing Company, Atlanta

This bottle of Sweetwater Georgia Brown arrived in the mail yesterday with a few other beers. As I was picking out a beer to drink tonight I realized that I've got mostly Belgian style beers chilling in the fridge. I chose to drink the Georgia Brown simply because it wasn't a Belgian beer. I don't have anything against Brown Ales at all, I tend to enjoy them quite a bit. I might have otherwise overlooked this beer because it just doesn't stand out of crowd. The label is a little hokey, with a cartoon trout being reeled in by a couple of inbred Georgian hillbillies.

The label goes on to implore the drink not to "float the mainstream" and claims that this beer is "as smooth as a Bill Clinton apology." One final note about the label, it seems Sweetwater won the Small Brewery of the Year award at the Great American Beer Festival in 2002 and this Brown Ale won a gold medal in 2001. Not bad credentials, but then again... 2001 was a long time ago.

This Brown Ale was largely underwhelming. The aroma is a little burnt for my liking but otherwise spot on. The flavor is certainly nothing to write home about. It's not bad, but it's nothing special. There is a good roasted nut and sweet malt flavor here, but the darker burnt grain components ruin the drinking experience for me. This beer is lighter bodied than I was expecting but it has enough flavor to leave you satisfied, it just happens that most of the flavors are masked by burnt grain and charred biscuits...