Holman’s description sounded great. “Golden toffee aroma, grainy malt flavours, and a dark chocolatey finish.” In fact it sounded almost too good to be true, like those ads on TV. And me, a self-confessed amber lover, well I wasn’t over the moon in anticipation of this brew but the gravity field had weakened considerably. We all know a taste test will tell much more than the tale of the tape.*
A nice amber pour, an amber amber for sure. With a very slim slice of bright white head. So far so good. An aroma of …. Not much of anything? Where is that “golden toffee aroma”? I’m starting to come back down to earth, but still hopeful that the taste well ring true. The taste tests results start coming in and it’s a mild amber toffee malt with substantial bitters in the middle through to the finish. Not an old smoothy but a harsh harpy. Less amber than one would hope for and more bitters than one would care for. An unbalanced and inequitable arrangement unfortunately.
Can a salty snack battle the bitters back into submission? Nope. The bitters didn’t abate, and this amber didn’t get any better. More ale than amber. There was some nice flavour in there, which boosted it’s rating a bit, but the amber played second fiddle to the bitter bass line. An amber ale, but mainly when it came to it’s colour.
Not all ambers are created equal, and this one certainly wasn’t equal to the task at hand.
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