I brewed this one back along, early autumn, and temperatures were still a bit too warm really so intitially the brew was victim to a bit of the old apple thing from higher fermentation temperatures. After six weeks of conditioning in the barrel, this got sorted and the brew turned into something really rather nice.
On the nose, there was not very much ... but my nose is probably the culprit there. The pint looked the part, absolutely. On the palate, no hop profile, but of course, it's a brown ale, so that is to be expected. The malt profile however was a bit different, a slight bitterness from the roasted malts was present, it gave you an elusive flavour to chase after, it kept you (me) coming back for more ... all in all a nice pint and at around $0.5 per pint who can complain ?
And, I found it much more interesting than the Newkie Brown in bottles as I remember it ... but I must admit that I haven't had a proper Newkie in a number of years, but that is my impression ... home-brew rules, so benefit of the doubt to the HB
Overall, a decent kit, no need to add sugar or malt extract, I would be happy doing it again.
:whistle:
