One of those new (and often exciting) Italian micro brews, in this case celebrating the city of Rome and intended to accompany Roman cuisine... Pours a deep, slightly brownish cloudy amber colour with dark bits of dead yeast here and there, under a medium thick, crackling, greyish white head. Pleasant aroma of fresh orange peel, walnuts, mango, grapes, pink grapefruit, gingerbread, peach, baker’s yeast, autumn leaves, leather, cantaloupe, banana. Adding the yeast deposit expectedly gives more of the fruity esters. Fruity onset, mango and unripe peaches, orange peel freshness, progressing to become very yeasty with powdery mouthfeel, nutty malt sweetishness, slightly toasted with soft carbonation, ending in a leafy and lightly citrussy hop bitterishness, dryish; the yeastiness lingers a bit, as well as the nutty maltiness. Pleasant thirst quencher, but the body is on the thin side. Are we sure this is a Märzen? Seems more like a top-fermented beer to me, like an English bitter or a ’spéciale belge’...

Bottle from Barrique Odijk, BB 01 2015, large sample. Hazy amber color with quite some small debris floating around, medium frothy off-white head. Aroma is spicy, slight caramelly, butterscotch, hint of toffee, hint of smoke. Bit sweet in taste, slight bitter. Medium carbonation, bit thin body. Decent enough beer though.

Bottle @ MaartenRF10. Thanks for sharing Maarten! Hazy amber color, small off-white head that diminishes almost instantly. Aroma is malts, quite sweet and floral. Taste malts, sweetness, a hint of honey, floral, a hint of strawberry (Dutch) "jam". Decent body and carbonation. Highly doubt it’s a good example of the style but the beer is quite decent.

Gylden brun med en del grums. Malt, karamell. Søt smak, lite bitterhet, kort ettersmak

Today’s 2nd beer is an Oktoberfest from Italy’s Birradamare: Birra Roma Ambrata. I picked up a six-pack on sale as some labels were scuffed, lucky me! 5.5% bottle from Rakuten. Drunk from a glass beer mug. An opaque nutty honey looking brown with a thick foamy head. Quite a fruity-wine like aroma reminiscent of Belgian yeast. A nice full bodied mouthfeel with some nutty, biscuity qualities & a touch of spicy smoke. I think Japanese people would call it "goku". The online reviews had me not expecting much so I was pleasently surprised! This is pretty tasty! A really solid beer.

Weird little 33cl bottle pours a hazy, caramel amber with some thin, off white head. Nose is yeast, a little biscotti, cracker, some apple, bread. Flavor takes a sharp turn, tomatoes, celery seed, bread, a little cardboard, some odd smokey. Strange, sweet finish. Why can’t these Italian brewers just try and stick to styles?

Bottle from B.O.A., Ostia, bb 9/2014, batch 5016
Beautiful red-amber color with medium sized head. Aroma of malt, with some caramel. Good mouthfeel, round, with nice caramel and malt flavor, light smoke, correct bitterness.
Pleasant beer.

Bottle. Red golden colour with an off-white head. Aroma is fruit, orange , yeast, malt. Flavour is sweet, fruit, orange, yeast, roasted malt, caramel. Medium body. OK beer.

Bottle 330ml.Unclear medium orange amber colour with a average, frothy, fair lacing, mostly diminishing, off-white head. Initial aroma is moderate malty, caramel, nutty, earthy notes. Aroma after first taste is moderate malty, smoke. Flavour is moderate sweet and light moderate bitter with a average to long duration, smoke, caramel. Body is medium, texture is oily and sticky, carbonation is soft. [20121110]