From old tasting notes. Clear, tawny orange color. Sweetish malt aroma. Mildly sweet malt flavor upfront. Very light bittersweet hops in finish. Brief sweet aftertaste.mwell balanced, yet very subtle in character. Medium bodied. Highly carbonated.

Pour is amber in color. Nose and taste is semi sweet molasses and lots of water. Rated 6/26/02

355 ml bottle from Sandy’s, SLO. Nose is nutty caramel with some light diacetyl. Clear amber with a medium beige head. Flavor is very lightly bitter with the caramel and diacetyl.

Medium caramel aroma. Coppery amber color with a white head that didn’t persist. Medium body with near creamy carbonation. It’s caramel, but there’s almost enough floral bitter to balance. Maybe a tad too malty for an ESB, or not. Finishes with a decent amount of bitter. Pretty much fits the style.

12oz bottle pours gold with creamy lasting off white head. The aroma is sweet sweet malts, a bit of spicy noble hops and minerals. The flavor reminds me of a Bass. This beer isn’t as malty sweet though. I like the better balance between the sweet and grainy malts and the spice-floral noble hops. Above average carbonation keeps the flavors bright and at the forefront.

350 ml loose bottle from Sam’s Wines, Downers Grove. This may be an old bottle (I can only find a code on the neck: 3108N L220 07). But I don’t mean that in a bad way: When I popped the cap, I immediately got a nice whiff of mellowed, raisin and prune-y malts. I’m thinking that’s outside the range for either a bitter or an amber. Poured in a glass tumbler, it’s a fiery reddish golden, a little lighter in the narrower part of the glass, with a thin head atop. Taste does not quite match that buildup: At first, I find a nice sharp English bitterness, but malts are kind of grainy, with some fruity esters. A bit of Burton water hardness kind of keeps the interest down. Could all of the goodness have crowded into the head space, waiting to escape first? Well, it’s pretty standard f’r’all that. They need to prepare something else to import to the states.

bottle - Pours amber with a small head. The aroma was fairly malty and not much else. The flavor was similar. There was some hops presence but to me the hops tasted kind of off. The finish is okay and pretty unremarkable, like the beer. It’s a decent session brew, but nothing I’d try to track down again. Brewery note - it closed over a year ago and the beer is retired? Is that accurate? It doesn’t seem hard to find now.

Pours a light amber. Conglomerate head with some lacing. Sour aroma. Crisp with a dry, lingering finish.

12oz bottle. Amber beer with a white head that laces. Nice malty aroma and flavor. Hops were noticeable for a nice balance. Sweet, caramel, good carbonation. A nice, enjoyable ale.