In recent years, the Lord Nelson - Australia's oldest pub brewery - has been pouring a growing range of seasonal and one-off beers through its taps in The Rocks. Some reappear every year, others are concocted for a special occasion, do their thing and disappear and, as of a few months ago, every now and again one of them breaks free of the pub and is brewed and bottled on a larger scale and distributed nationwide. First for this treatment was the rather tasty Double Nelson IPA and following in its footsteps is this rendition of 2IC, the brewery's brown ale. Although initially taking the real ales of the UK as inspiration, the Lord isn't averse to crossing the Atlantic and throwing a little of the New World into the mix and that's the case here, with gentle fruity, orange and citrus hops adding a slight American twist to the maltiness (toffee, biscuit, cocoa) of this cloudy, tan brown ale that's light on the palate and presumably designed to ease the drinker out of the colder months.
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