I haven’t had a bottle of Smuttynose beer since the Big A IPA that I reviewed back in February of 2013. For the longest time, Smuttynose was one of my go-to breweries, but you know how it goes. Once you start traveling down the Craft Beer road, you never know where it will lead you. You find a brewery you’ve never heard of, try their beer, like it, and then you try another. Travel a bit farther down that road and then you stumble upon another brewer. And then another. And then another. The next thing you know, your old go-to breweries become “has beens”. But then one day, as you’re perusing the aisles of your favorite bottle shop, you see a familiar name, but an unfamiliar label. And that’s exactly how I happened upon this bottle of Smuttynose Brewing Company’s Durty. Hoppy Brown Ale? Don’t mind if I do!
Here’s what the Live Free or Die State’s very own Smuttynose Brewing Company has to say about Durty:
Big, Brown and Hoppy. You never know what Mud Season is going to throw at you, so we brewed a beer that covers all the bases. We took the malty notes of a brown ale and balanced them with the hop aroma and flavor of a double IPA. Now we’re talking Durty!
Let’s get our hands dirty and try Smutty’s Durty…
- Appearance: Muddy and ruddy is one way to describe the color of Durty. Think freshly turned damp earth with red clay highlights when held up to the light. Tan foam that tops out at about 1/4 inch and dissipates slowly. A wee bit of lacing.
- Aroma: Take a pine cone and dip it into espresso infused dark chocolate. That’s what this smells like. A touch of bitter orange comes through too.
- Taste: Very creamy mouthfeel with a touch of fizziness to the carbonation. Starts with those chocolate and coffee notes, then WHAM!, your taste buds get a big hit of delightfully bitter hops. It all comes together at the finish with a balance of coffee/chocolate/piney flavors. A touch of booziness comes through too.
- ABV: 8.4%
Smuttynose Durty is one seriously bold and delicious beer that lies somewhere between an IPA and a Black IPA, which in my mind, is a really nice place to be. What impressed me most was how the multitude of flavors all came together so beautifully. If only I could track this down on tap…
Categories: Brew Review, Smuttynose
AMKrouse
The Alemonger
G-LO
limpd
The Wookie
The ROK
Sarah -BeautifulTangibleThings
The Astounding Prism
It's just the booze dancing... 
Woah!! That is one massive bottle! What is it? Megaboam? That thing could house the entire population of Portugal (so long as none of them brought their 60″ commercial Viking ranges along).
Day 33 without craft beer yet for some unknown reason, I found myself in a bottle shop a few days ago perusing the shelves. What to my wandering eyes did I see but a much, much smaller bottle of Durty. A few nanoseconds later it was safely secured in my cart. OK, maybe not all that safely secured. All manner of threats to the structural integrity of the glass housing containing the beer itself present themselves to any craft beer shopper whilst making his or her way about a particular store but most of those threats are the stuff of nightmares (not Meryl Streep/Julia Roberts August of Osage County Chick Flick Terror nightmares but reasonably disturbing nonetheless).
In any event, the last time I had a beer that seemed to match the profile you described was a couple years ago, April 2012. It was a Stone Collab TBA (Texas Brown Ale) which I found at Total Wine & More along Scottsdale Rd in Scottsdale, AZ. To be honest, I was more excited to try the Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale that shared the cart (and temporary craft beer fridge at the Hyatt) with the TBA. The Rogue pink bottle brew was horrid – further securing their leading position as Shark Jumped Brewer of the Decade. Fortunately, the TBA was fantastic. Hopefully Durty will provide a craft beer deja vu of sorts.
Cheers!
Oh, and another thing – get that Anti-Semetic mud thumpng four wheeler beast out of there before I text you know who………..
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Hang on! Did you not once own a Jeep (w/o AC no less!)? Also, isn’t your name on a plaque at Pink Jeep Headquarters in Sedona, AZ? And I believe you own a mountain bike too. Sounds to like you enjoy getting down and Durty every so often.
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Actually – 3 Jeeps: 2 Wranglers (one WITH A/C) and 1 Cherokee. And there was also the Dodge Ram Pickup with one of them steel tool boxes in the bed (for my golf clubs).
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You got car ADD.
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