REVIEW #50: Mann's Brown Ale (Marston's Beer Co.)

Pours dark reddy brown with a very light brown head. Sweet and malty nose, almost ice cream like. Light and refreshingly sweet nutty barley malt flavour up front. It finishes dry with a subtly bitter roast note. A very light touch of hop is used, allowing the malt(s) lead the way. It's a medium bodied beer and very drinkable. The style of this beer is to my mind more akin to a mild than a brown ale, considering the ABV (though the 2 styles are very close relations) and the sweetness of the malt. Newcastle Brown Ale, for example, has a definite biscuit-like malt base but is very well hopped and carbonated in contrast to Mann's Brown.

Mann's Brown ale has plenty of history behind it. It was first brewed in 1902 by Thomas Wells Thorpe, head brewer at Mann, Crossman & Paulin's London brewery which has long gone out of business. The beer is now brewed in the Burtonwood Brewery, Cheshire but is a brand now owned by Marston's Beer Co (or Refresh UK). This brown ale is in fact lower in ABV than most milds! Its strength has varied in the past; I found a record of it being 4% in 1926 for example. Its was marketed in these early days as a long mixer, often to make black and tans (a mix of a stout and a mild) and has recently been re-marketed as such. Not a bad idea but its perfectly good on its own.

• MALTS: dark

• HOPS: LOW
• IBU: LOW
• ABV: 2.8%`

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