Kona Brewing Co.

I highly recommend this beach beer!

The Koko brown is definitely the first coconut flavoured beer that I’ve ever had.  The aroma of coconut and malt starts you off, enticing you with the sweet scents of the beach. The medium brown body is rich and full-bodied, with a toasted coconut flavour mixing with some mild chocolates and roasted malts, its a flavour combination that you can really appreciate.  The finish is dry while also being crisp, giving you the desire to drink another without any sort of heavy or weighty feel. It’s quite the refreshing beer and certainly a fine addition to our stock at Johnnie MacCracken’s! Make sure you stop in and ask for this one before it’s all gone!

82 on Beer Advocate

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/579/66449

http://konabrewingco.com/beers/koko-brown/

The Winter Warmer

With an incredibly dark body and a tan head, this Porter from Tommyknocker elicits a powdered cocoa smell that intoxicates the senses. In a standard pint glass, poured from tap, the taste its like milk chocolate and roasted malts swishing around. The sweet cocoa flavours taking the forefront as the malts bring up the rear. It’s a light winter porter; replete with the chocolate and malt, very little bitterness and a sweet after-taste that leaves your mouth feeling like you just ate a snickers bar.  At 5.7%, this porter is highly drinkable and a great way to start off the night or finish up dinner! Available now, at Johnnie MacCracken’s!

http://tommyknocker.com/our-beers/cocoa-porter-winter-warmer

Bridgeport Brewing Co.

With it’s light head and toasty aroma, this deeply amber Scotch Ale  is a lighter sort than the typical scotch ale, with a milder flavour profile ideal for people that haven’t delved into the Scotch Ales before.  With a nutty, almost sweet flavour, followed by the rich malts and oak, this is an ideal winter ale. It  has a very nice, slightly bitter after-taste that leaves a vanilla-oak flavour on your tongue.  Though I think I’d prefer a stronger(both in abv and flavour) scotch ale, this is a wonderful ale for the lighter-weight drinker or the new initiate to scotch ales. This beer would pair wonderfully with a nice slab of meat and some potato salad.

82 on Beer Advocate

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/43/54681

Dark Chocolate in a Glass

The Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout is a dark and heady chocolate brew that excites the senses. With a bitter dark chocolate kick followed by roasted malts, this Russian Imperial Stout is the Tsar of the show. With a smooth sultry flavour that cascades down the tongue like a dark nestle chocolate waterfall, this is a full-bodied stout that will coat your mouth with flavour and have you tasting chocolate for the rest of the day(so make sure you like it!).  At 10% there is a slight alcohol flavour at the end,  but it mixes so well with the chocolaty syrup that you’ll hardly notice as you down Stout after Stout(bring  a DD).  I highly recommend this stout. It’s incredibly drinkable(you can have a bunch), its creamy, full-bodied, full-flavoured and simply delightful.

93(exceptional) on beer advocate

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/45/680

Avery Brewing Co. Boulder, Co.

“This beautiful, deep russet brew has the sweet and somewhat nutty character of Adam Avery’s late (1992-2002) Chocolate Lab, for which it is named. ” That’s the first line I read on the Ellie’s brown Ale website, and as an animal lover, was all I needed to know to understand this wonderful brown ale.  It has character. Its an old friend that calls you just for the sake of seeing how you’re doing. It’s  got depth and hearth, and it’s bold but not overwhelming.  The ale pours the darkest brown possible, with a lightly tanned head that tops it like caramel on top of dark chocolate. Dark chocolate being the foremost flavour in the ale, the maltiness followed by hints of nuts and light vanilla.  The finish is malty with light hops, a perfect compliment to the strong chocolate centre, and leaves a little after-taste so you can remember it after your glass is empty. Avery recommends pairing this hearty brew up with spicy or smoky meats, and I couldn’t agree more. I recommend the BBQ Pork Butt, both available at Johnnie MacCracken’s. Right now. Merry Christmas!

http://www.averybrewing.com/our-ales/54

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30/2894

88 on Beer Advocate

The Bros give it a 92!

Yo ho, Blow the man down

The Monday Night Brewing company continues to produce great tasting beer after great tasting beer, and the Eye Patch Ale is certainly no exception to the rule. With a hoppy scent, light with sweet citrus, the golden amber hue of this IPA sets the tone for this delicious IPA.  The Hops definitely take the forefront, followed closely behind by grapefruit flavours and smooth malt base.  This is a crisp and refreshing IPA, full bodied as it is, would pair wonderfully with a nice slab of red meat, some shrimp, or  a spicy blackened chicken.  My choice would be the Marietta Moonshine.  All in all, you’ve got a very full-bodied, crisp IPA with great hop and malt flavours and just the perfect hint of sweetness.  Another great beer from Monday Night Brewing Company.

http://mondaynightbrewing.com/brews/eye-patch-ale/

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/26516/71869

B on Beer Advocate

Smutty Nose Robust Porter

The Award Winning New Hampshire Special

An award winning porter from New Hampshire, the Smutty Nose Robust Porter relishes in its malt and hops, coffee and chocolate, and its smooth and full-bodied character.  A wonderful shade of brownish red, the mahogany colour of this delightful porter is so deep and complex you can almost taste it. From the first sip of coffee and chocolate, to the malt in the middle and the hops on the finish, this is a porter that is sure to please. The flavour is very full-bodied, with a marshmallow feel in the center, and a great coffee after-taste that lingers on the tongue with chocolates. It reminds me very-much of a porter version of Wake-N-Bake, which I love and would marry, were it a woman. This goes great with the cold nights at the square, and a plate of Fish n Chips. I highly recommend you try it before we run out!

A- on Beer Advocate

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/141/622/?sort=high&start=0

http://smuttynose.com/

Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale

Monday Night Brewing

Self-described as a “dark, malty bombshell”, the Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale lives up to its name.  The bodacious brown head brings a bevy of chocolate malt flavour and boastful burnt toast. The ale pours a perpetually black colour, allowing little to no light through, cementing it’s “dark” namesake. The taste is full-bodied and flavourful without being foul or too forward. The malt takes center-stage sifting through your senses, giving you the chocolates, the barley and a slight sip of sweetness. Solidly, the mouth is filled with this fragrant fluid, not too sweet and not too powerful, but well-balanced and indeed a bombshell.  I recommend this, most definitely on days like today, when the air is crisp but MacCracken’s and the crowd will warm you up.

http://mondaynightbrewing.com/brews/drafty-kilt-scotch-ale/

Beer Advocate rating: A- (and it totally deserves it)

Terrapin Wake ‘N’ Bake

Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Terrapin’s Wake ‘N’ Bake Stout is one of the most sought after beers in the entire South-East.  A brilliant blend of work between Jittery Joe’s and the Terrapin Beer Company, the greatest tragedy is that this beer is only available for part of the year.  An 8.6% stou that combines with a perfect blend of Costa Rican, Guatemalan, & Zimbabwean coffee beans, to come together in a glass to make your mouth water and the smells of cocoa, coffee, chocolate malts and light hop and barley.  This beer is dark as a new moon night with a chocolate head that evokes the images of chocolate icing on top of a dark German chocolate cake.  The chocolate tends to take the front as you taste, with the coffee covering down on the finish with light oatmeal throughout the entire taste.  The mouthfeel is nice too as, while at first, you’d expect it to be very syrupy, it doesn’t leave a lingering oily taste.  This is an amazing beer for the winter, and one of the most limited seasonals you’ll ever find. Here’s the best part, on Wednesday the 23rd of November, MacCracken’s will be hosting a special Terrapin event and anyone that comes in and gets a Terrapin beer will get a free Terrapin mason jar glass(limit 1 per customer)!  So make sure you’re here for the special event, because once its over, you’ll be back to waiting another year for this phenomenal stout!

A- on Beer Advocate