Brodies: Caramel Salt Beer (England: Brown Ale: 6.5% ABV)
Visual: Cloudy sediment filled brown. Moderate creamy slightly browned head. Lots of suds left by the head.
Nose: Toffee doughnuts. Glazes. Honey coated peanuts. Coffee dust.
Body: Smooth texture. Sweet caramel dominates. Pretzels. Salt. Doughnuts. Quite bitter, Condensed cream. Sickly sweet. Raisins.
Finish: Salt. Fudge. Brown bread. Bitter. Pretzels.
Conclusion: There are good beers. Bad Beers. Beers that you drink for the experience, and beers that live up to their names. This is at the very least the latter two.
Very thick textured and sickly sweet. That caramel and salt are unmistakable, calling both to toffee doughnuts and salted pretzels. An odd mix of quite bready products with sweet and salt variants. There has been some debate over how salted this is. To me it was quite prevalent, especially in the finish. To my friends it was a subtle note. Maybe I’m just very sensitive to salt. Any which way the caramel by far dominates of the two elements.
The flavor levels you get in this are, if anything, slightly too big. When it is sweet it is sickly, the salt is shaken loosely over and dries in the finish. It is quite unlike a beer I have tried before. I had to take my time, to decide if it was a good beer or a bad beer that just happened to be very interesting.
While I was deciding my friend and I had a short debate on if the doughnuts here more resembled Thornton’s Toffee in Doughnuts or Krispy Kreme. It was quickly decided. Krispy Kreme styled sickly sweet all the way.
So, with that digression out of the way I returned to. Is it a good beer?
For a half I decided it is the sweet bready delight. The unique flavours lean just on the right side of manageable and it doesn’t hold anything back. For a full pint, I don’t think I could manage that.
Frankly, grab a half, its character is unique, thick and lovely. You wont regret it.
Background; I admit, I looked up the beer style for this one as I had no sodding idea. Drunk at the Brodies Easter Bash in London. It was a friends Birthday and so I was down and taking the chance to enjoy the massive range of beers they had on that night. I drank a good few but only got the chance to review but a fraction. So a Caramel Salt Beer huh. You knew I had to at least try it. I am becoming quite the fan of Brodies, their massive range of beers, very cheap prices at their home pub, wild experimentation and high quality make them a good choice.
