Comparing a beer to a well-worn leather chair is the kind of description that should collapse under its own pretension. Confluence somehow gets away with it.
This Brown Ale, 5.5% ABV, leans on roasted chestnuts and a touch of caramel, smooth and malty without weighing the whole thing down. The brewery's own framing, "the warm soil of the heartland," is doing a lot of lifting, but the beer underneath backs it up: full-flavored, comfortable, the kind of thing you drink on a cold evening without needing to think too hard about it, and honestly works fine on a warm one too.
Des Moines' Confluence has never been a brewery chasing trends, and a straightforward, well-made brown ale is exactly the kind of beer that proves it.
Releasing Friday, July 17th, with distribution across Iowa the following Monday.
A leather-chair beer. Somehow, not a stretch.