Beer of the Weekend #754: Jackie Brown

Today I made a beer run to John’s Grocery, armed with a 10 percent discount coupon. I browsed the shelves, trying to find a couple beers I would not otherwise buy without a coupon. Ten percent is not much of a discount, but a little free beer is always welcome. I picked out a couple choice brews and a sixer of a beer I wanted to review for an upcoming LV recommendation (my deadline is Monday — and the beer turned out to be awful), then headed to the counter, thoughts of the little coupon tucked in my wallet on my mind. However, while walking back to my car, beers in hand, it dawned on me: I forgot to use it.

Grrr! Oh, well. I’ll use it next time.

The beer of the weekend — and one of the beers I bought today — is Jackie Brown, brewed by Mikkeller of Copenhagen, Denmark, at De Proef Brouwerij at Lochristi-Hijfte, Belgium.


The color is mahogany brown. A lot of dense, shiny, bubble-spotted head develops and dissipates slowly and unevenly. The first whiff includes a lot more lemon zest than one would expect for a brown ale. It smells really hoppy. It reminds me of an overpriced Mikkeller single-hop brew. It is hoppy and zesty, but brown malt slowly emerges. The flavor is much toastier than I ever expected from the aroma. It is still hoppier than a usual brown ale with a lemon zest bitterness, though. There are flavors of brown and toasted malt, and there is also quite a bit of yeast. (There is a bit of yeast sediment on the bottom of the bottle.) The zest lingers on the taste buds. I tell you what: it is not worth $13 — with or without a 10 percent discount. It is pretty lackluster, especially since it pays homage to such a great movie. It’s a shame, really. It becomes toastier as it warms, but it is still a shell of what it could and should be.

Fun facts about Jackie Brown:

• Style: Brown ale.

• Price: $12.99 per 25.4-ounce bottle at John’s Grocery in Iowa City. (By the way, the volume is listed on the label as “1 PT 9.4 FL OZ.” Okay… According to my MacBook’s handy dandy conversion tool, that is a little over 751 ml. Needless to say, the usage of mixed measurements is yet another reason why we should switch to the metric system, especially for volumes.)

• Alcohol content: 6 percent ABV.

• One reason I bought this beer is because
Jackie Brown is my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie. I love that movie! Whenever I see it on one of the movie channels, I cannot resist the urge to watch it. One of the things I love about that movie is that nobody gets senselessly mutilated. Brains don’t go flying. Good movies don’t have to be gory!

The Quiet Man’s grade: C+.

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