North Coast Brother Thelonious

In perusing the shelves of my local Central market I sometimes look beyond the sixpack's of quality craft beer and seek out a beer in the Big bottle format, one that can be shared amongst friends and ejoyed. The other day I found just the bottle, one that I had heard about for a while, but had never had the opportunity to try, North Coast Brother Thelonious Belgian Style Abbey Ale. Ahh the reasons why I wanted to try it are numerous: I have really liked the North Coast Beers I have tried in the past (especially their Imperial Russian Stout), its named after a famous jazz musician (Thelonious Monk) and $2.00 of every case goes to the namesakes Institute of Jazz. All very cool, very enticing to me.
The Beer: The Beer weighs in at 9.4%, pouring a nice cloudy amber. Smells of sweet malt, slightly toasted toffe, and hops. The mouth is not that full, but tastes of those same slightly roasted toffee notes, a bit of fruit and a bit of hop bitterness at the end. An ok beer, but something was missing to bring it over the top. Here's what the folks at BA had to say.