Getting Nuked on Newcy Brown (Newcastle Brown Ale)

Member Name: Zmugzy

Product:	Newcastle Brown Ale
Date:	08/01/09 (289 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It comes in a bottle and helps the North East economy

Disadvantages: Turns you into a head banger.

Newcastle Brown has been brewed in Tyne and Wear since 1927. No link has yet been proven but this was also the last year that Newcastle Utd won the football league championship. It's the one drink from behind the bar that's guaranteed to give me a splitting head ache even after just one bottle. The first time this happened I'd already consumed three or four pints of other ales and beers before I began swigging the 'Broon' stuff, so I couldn't be sure whether 'the bottle of dog' as it's also sometimes known, was to blame. Only further dedicated research over the years has left me in no doubt that Newcy Brown is for headbangers. I should have guessed this because the mate who first introduced me to it was a real headbanger and drank bottles of it by the dozen. Newcastle Brown ale is now a heavily marketed export brand. Amazingly in the 1990s it became the best-selling bottled beer in the UK, as well as the top-selling bottled beer in Europe. Whether this is still true I'm not sure.

The bottled brew is promoted as being 'smooth like no other'. Personally I don't find it smooth at all. Like many a bottle of ale it's full of gas, too fizzy and is guaranteed to have you farting for England in no time. It must be a major contributor to global warming on account of all the methane and carbon dioxide that is generated during the production and consumption process. Although it's not all bad. There are said to be considerable benefits for those with constipation: drinking six bottles is supposed to ease the ailment. The alcohol content is 4.7% - a percentage that was a point or so higher in the distant past when some say it used to be a much more wholesome tastier brew.

In appearance the beer has the complex tones of dark brown mud and when poured into the glass produces a short-lived soapy frothy head similar to that which you find on polluted rivers that flow past chemical factories in Poland. OK, I'll admit the beer has its moments when a mildly pleasant malty flavour with a hint of caramel rises to the surface, but overall one is left with an artificial taste that sticks to the tongue and palate like some waste synthetic residue. And then there's the acrid smell of saccharine that makes your stomach queasy and your eyes water... and that's only when you stand next to someone who's drinking it. It's a full-bodied ale in the sense that your body feels full and your eyeballs start swelling when you've had a bottle or two.

Some say this is an ale that should be chilled before serving whilst others demand it must be served at room temperature. Perhaps that's where the problem lies. Apparently the flavour and quality of a bottle of Brown varies a lot depending on how it's stored. Bad storage in many establishments is one of the reasons - some claim - why the drink deteriorates over time whilst on the shelf. So maybe I've just been getting bad ones.

At the time of writing a 550ml bottle can be purchased in supermarkets for around £1.70.

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