Smuttynose Brewing Company - Old Brown Dog Ale

This Old dog’s got a trick for ya! You’re gonna love this beer as much as we dig its name! Old Brown Dog is crafted with a combination of 2-row domestic Pale, Munich, Chocolate, and Crystal malts. Smuttynose really hops it up with three unique hops including Willamette and Cascade, primarily used for their aromatic contributions and Galena, added for bittering. . Impress your friends and family with this bark of nostalgia, the dog pictured on this beer’s label is Peter’s 9-year-old half Weimaraner half Brittany Spaniel, Olive. You’ve gotta love having your own brewery. The polished tastes of our panel found it to be very well balanced while offering a clean Cascade hoppy finish. Note a malty nose with some fruity undertones in this filtered, medium-to-full-bodied dark amber ale. Look for a bigger hop character and more body than a traditional English Brown Ale. Overall we found this selection to be well deserving of its many accolades. In fact, we might go so far as to say…”It’s dawg-gone sensational!” Try pairing this one up with smoked fish or roast beef.

Peter Egelston is truly a beer hound after our own heart. Peter dons many a hat at the Smuttynose Brewing Company as he is both the founder and owner, and has already left quite a paw print on the New England brewing community. His masterful skills have aided in the achievement of win after win with the start of one of the original New England brewpubs, the instantaneous success of a second brewpub, a brewery, and one of the most well attended beer festivals in the Northeast. Phew! One might consider him “somewhat” passionate about beer.

The inevitable beer quest began in 1986 when Peter’s sister Janet and her boyfriend Mark convinced Peter to quit his teaching job in Brooklyn, New York and head out to Massachusetts to open a brewpub. A tough decision for some. Educating our country’s young minds or our country’s not so young taste buds! For us, the call was a no brainer, but then we are a bit jaded now, aren’t we? Peter sowed his wild hops in Massachusetts until 1991, at which time he opened New Hampshire’s first brewpub, and called it the Portsmouth Brewery. With good fortune and diligent work habits, Peter realized that it was time to hone in on his dream and open his first brewery.

The Smuttynose Brewing Co. is located on the New Hampshire coast in the historic city of Portsmouth and has a wealth of nostalgia surrounding it. The brewery, which opened in 1994, was built on the ruins of the Frank Jones Brewing Company, a brewery that opened in 1992 and promptly went out of business a year later. Good fortune for Peter. Not so good for Frank. Perhaps the cleaver name of the brewery had something to do with it.

Peter’s brewery is named after Smuttynose Island, one of the isles of Shoals - a small, rugged group of nine islands that lie less than ten miles off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. Folklore lends itself to the belief that mariners in the 1600s named the island based on the dark seaweed-covered rock ledge that juts out from one end of the island. Rich in both, history and legend, the isles of Shoals have been home to poets, pirates, fishermen, and now a brewery.

For more information about the brewery and scheduled tours, call (603) 436-4026 or check out their web site at www.smuttynose.com.