It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Beer: Cigar City Maduro

Beer #2 is more like it. After yesterday's New England IPA, we're moving closer to where I want to be with a fantastic brown ale:  Cigar City's Maduro.  Tampa's Cigar City is well-known and respected in Florida and the South, but it is finally starting to creep up north.  It made its debut in Chicago earlier this year, and I'm of the firm belief that the more beer available, the better.  Brown ale are kind of forgotten about in the era of IPAs, sours, barrel-aged beers, imperial stouts, and saisons, but a good brown ale is always welcome, especially when the whether is a little cooler.  The Maduro is very good.  It's chocolatey, malty, and nutty, not unlike the cigar wrapper after which it is named.

Name: Maduro Brown Ale
Brewery:  Cigar City Brewing
Location:  Tampa, FL
ABV:  5.5%
IBU:  20
Good for drinking if: You are freaking out about the Bears coming back from ten points down in the last minute and a half of regulation, only to be crushed by their OT loss to a far inferior team. 
Rating (out of five stars, by quarter star increments):  4