Tallgrass Brewing Company's Tallgrass Ale

Well, after about three weeks of vacation, to places where there is little or no beer, I'm back and for some reason decided to celebrate in style by reviewing a beer from.... Kansas. One named after grass.

I don't get it either. But it's cold, so here goes. I also haven't had a beer in a month, so it should be interesting to see if my taste buds have reset.

This one pours a loosely filtered coppery brown, with a decent tan head for a brown. It fades to a sheet, but even that's more than many browns, including some of my favorites.

The label says something about a toffee aroma, but I don't smell it. I do smell the standard slightly nutty smell, but also a yeasty sweet bread that leans slightly to the Belgian side.

Ooof. Much nuttier in the taste. It almost punches you, in fact. It fades to a weak yeasty bread similar to the smell, but I still don't taste any toffee. Slight wet tobacco taste to it.

It's big for a brown, especially an English brown. There's something a tad off about it though, like it's been filtered by that red tallgrass that grows in the Flint Hills or something. Leans further toward a Belgian (which I dislike) in both smell and taste as it gets warmer.

Eh, it's Kansas.