Hello everyone. For today’s craft beer review I’m going to be trying the Frangelic Mountain Brown produced by the Founders Brewing Company located in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Most that have followed this blog know what a fan of Founders I am, so to have the opportunity to try this limited Backstage Release beer really excites me.
Let’s jump to the website, foundersbrewing.com, and see what they have to say about this beer.
Frangelic Mountain Brown is the quintessential taproom “one-off” beer: Founders’ brewers created the Mountain Brown series for their taproom in Grand Rapids in 2007. Frangelic Mountain Brown is the 16th iteration in the series of popular brown ales—and it likely won’t be the last. The singular characteristic of this beer comes from the use of hazelnut coffees in the brewing process. The beer has distinct aromatics with sweet and nutty flavors beautifully balanced. Founders is known for its beers made with coffee (i.e., the Breakfast Stout series), but this is both the brewery’s first brown ale and its first beer brewed with hazelnut coffees to be bottled.
Let’s drink.
This brew came in a 25.4 oz. bottle with an ABV of 9.0%.
It poured dark brown with some ruby hues around the edges of the snifter. The head was light tan in color, smooth, soft and creamy. It had a near perfect size with some pretty impressive retention time and some very conspicuous lacing as well. This beer looked great in the glass.
The nose released a nice shot of espresso, toasted malts and breads. Beautiful hints of roasted and toasted hazelnuts with a very, very slight touch of bittersweet chocolate. I really liked this fragrance. I thought it was bold, balanced fairly well and enjoyable.
The taste had a lot more of the chocolate flavoring. Cocoa powder and savors of freshly baked brownies. It was sweet, but not overly sweet. Less coffee was found, but the hazelnut was there along with more of the toasted breads and a slight “leafy” profile. This taste was very malty, round with low bitterness and little to no alcohol. The very last sip reminded me of the last swallow of the chocolate milk I used to drink as a kid.
The mouthfeel was a solid medium. Very, very dry, smooth and chewy with a medium to low carbonation. A decent amount of flavor was left behind, but not as much as I had hoped actually. Still not too bad though.
Man, I really liked this beer. One of the better Browns I’ve had. It was chocked full of aroma and flavor and the drinkability was exceptional. I tried this back in the Fall and it totally hit the spot. I hope that Founders decides to make this again because I would definitely continue to pick it up. I’ve noticed that this beer has gotten some mixed reviews and I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s because it didn’t get all of the publicity that some of the other Backstage beers got. Anyway, I don’t care. This is a great beer. I should have picked up two bottles. I hope that you guys had the opportunity to try the Founders Frangelic Mountain Brown. It was definitely a treat and one that I hope to get to try again.
Thanks for reading and commenting everyone. I really appreciate it.
Until next time. Cheers.
Score: 4.5 out of 5
Grade: A
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