Award Winner: Paint’n the Town Brown

You can’t keep a great beer down – Paint’n the Town Brown has returned!

Like IPAs and pale ales, brown ales offer a tremendous amount of variety within a single style of beer.

Back when the style was first developed by English brewers in the 1600s, “brown ale” referred to dark, mild ales brewed with brown malt. That relatively narrow definition continued until around 1800 when brewers discovered that pale malt offered a higher yield than its darker cousin and so the lighter type of malt became the de facto ingredient for almost all beer, including porters, stouts and brown ale varieties.

After World War II, changing consumer tastes saw a reduction in the availability of strong brown ales, namely those with ABVs of 4% or better. Though as the average alcohol content decreased, the diversity of brown ales increased. Today, brown ales can be found in a wide range of flavors and profiles to suit a wide range of tastes and preferences. You can enjoy low-alcohol versions that tend to the sweet side, or medium-strength beers with noticeable bitterness, or brown ales that are big on both malt and hops.

One place where classic, strong brown ales never went out of style was northern England. Taking inspiration from those brews, Hop Valley’s Paint’n the Town Brown is a craft creation that offers warm notes of toasted bread and roasted malts paired with a balanced combination of Santiam and Chinook hops to tie everything together. This is a brown ale close to our hearts, done well and done right.

But don’t just take our word for it. In 2017, Paint’n the Town Brown received a silver medal at the prestigious Best of Craft Beer Awards in the American-Style Brown Ale category, besting dozens of other entries from breweries from all over the country and around the world. Featuring 5% ABV and 33 IBUs, the beer is a layered yet harmonious drinking experience that will have you doing life up brown.

That’s right, doing life up brown. Back in the day, saying you were going to “do it up brown” meant doing whatever “it” is thoroughly, completely or perfectly. Or sparing no expense or pains in accomplishing something. Or going all-in without cutting corners.

So yeah, just like Hop Valley’s quintessential brown ale that’s back for a limited time. Available on draft and cask only, just as it was meant to be.

Cheers!