Name: Goodieson Brewery Brown Ale

Style: Brown Ale

Country: Australia

ABV: 6%

Beer description: Goodieson Brewery is a small, family owned brewery in McLaren Vale, South Australia. At the time of writing this, their distribution looks to be fairly small and limited to South Australia. According to their bottle and website, they emphasise tradition in their brewing, so, at first glance, this should be a traditional brown ale.

The beer pours brown with a decent amount of head that goes away quickly. It looks pretty unassuming and the idea of traditional sits in the mind as you look at it.

The beer smells sweet and malty like a brown ale should be. Other than that, there’s not much in the aroma. This brown ale is about as traditional and basic as a brown ale gets! Really hunting, there are, of course, some hope aromas: mostly the mild spiciness found in a traditional English brown ale hopping. From the smell alone, while this looks to be a good beer, the brewers have ventured far from the mold.

Very lightly carbonated, this beer’s tradition is even more apparent as it goes down. Straight dark malt flavours and a little bit of burnt coffee are up the front, followed by a mellow hop bitterness. It’s not too much, just a hint. Finally, the beer has a fairly thin finish and probably could do with a little bit more of a punch at the end. It’s redeemed, however, by a bit of spiciness which is great.

The dark malts and coffee really come through in this beer. For palates more used to big, hopped up beers, there may be a little disappointment here. This is a beer that would be at home hand pumped at an English pub along side a myriad of real ales.

Check out other brown ale reviews.

See other Goodieson beer reviews.