Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Draft, Downers Grove. Dark brown color, but with bright highlights, no haze. Stable, brown egg-shell foam for head. Smells nutty, with some honey and roastiness. First taste shows kind of a runny mouthfeel, standard for the Emmett’s house style. Beyond that is a nicely balanced session beer. Impressions of roasted porter malt on top of nuts and honey. A slightly earthy British hop note in balance. As usual for Emmett’s a sturdily built beer that runs within the borders, not to extremes.
Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Draft in a goblet at Downers Grove Emmett’s. Nice honey gold color in its goblet: hey, I’m generous to beers that look good. Honey smell, too, with a backing of alcohol. Taste is solidly to style, more honey and candi sugar, a note of yeast, a bit of clove and fruit ester. Some spiciness grows halfway through. Served way too cold for this style.
McDermottDrink (4593) reviewed Oktoberfest from Emmetts Brewing Co. 17 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Draft at Downers Grove, English pint glass. Slight letdown after the Patriot’s Pride. Dark amber color, but clear, like the Okto’s we all like. Same scrum of light foam as with most Emmett’s brews. Munich malt smell with yeasty overtones. Taste starts out with too much banana-y weizen esters. Thankfully, that impression recedes. It seems to have lagered too warm and lost its chance to finish. Still it does improve further down, and I can get a nice taste of Vienna malts and ticklish spicy hops.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Draft at Downers Grove, English pint glass. Now they call it an "English Brown Ale," and I’m liking this a lot. Opaque, dark brown under a thin scrum of foam that rises up on the edge. Bracing malt smell laced with familiar English hop nose. Taste is beautifully nutty and roasty with strong tea notes. This suggested Fuggles hops (like I know) with some mint around the edges. A slight burn from prickly carbonation, where the alcohol is hiding. Would like to see this on a cask pour.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
New Limited Edition, sold in 22 oz. bombers. I picked this up at the Downers Grove restaurant. Label also shows it as a "Brewmaster’s Reserve," and has a best by Nov. ’09 date. Pours a clear, golden Pils body with a short layer of foam. Smell is something on the order of a better malt liquor: I smell alcohol and malts, but none of the nasty medicinal or adjunct note. Taste is pretty nice; I get a nice, strong, slightly toasty Pils malt taste. Very warming altogether on the tongue, and not just from alcohol. Label on current offering lists Hallertau, and the spicy bitterness of a good German hop load is evident, although it doesn’t bring itself up to IIPA standards. Very slight yeasty dough taste. Worthy to stand up to any American brewpub iteration of this style, maybe a little less fully rounded than Sam Adams’ version. But a big leap over the imported Euro diesels. A good deal at $7 per.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Draft at Downers Grove. Nice looking brownish amber in an English pint. Thin head. Caramel malt smell with a bit of yeast note. Taste has nice load of caramel or Vienna type malts, not too sweet. Light carbonation makes the mouthfeel a little heavy. Hop character can’t quite be picked out, but that’s okay for this style.
Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7
Draft at Emmett’s, Downers Grove. Menu still shows this as an oatmeal stout, and it certainly seems like it to me. Nice nitro pour yields a black body, paler at first from a brief Guinness cascade. Cappuccino colored foam shows dark swirls. Nice mocha coffee smell presented in a proper English pint glass instead of a shaker. Sweet creamy taste and texture to start, thanks to oatmeal and nitro. Some roast coffee astringency at first, but it goes away. Thin nitro mouthfeel makes this go down nice and easy, keeping me from getting filled up. Maintains a milk chocolate impression all the way down. Yeah, I’m rating this higher than the first two. It just hit me at the right time of evening.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Draft in an English pint, Downers Grove. Deep red-brown body, one-finger light tan head, nice and clean looking. Rich cocoa malt smell. Easygoing texture is the first thing I taste. Continues cocoa impressions, adding a bit of coffee, caramel malts and a small amount of dark roast malt. Bit of yeast in the background. Malts are slightly bolder than average. with a correspondingly stronger Engligh hop bill. Hints of molasses cookie at the finish. A brown ale, but more of it.
McDermottDrink (4593) reviewed Hefe-Weizen from Emmetts Brewing Co. 18 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Draft at Emmett’s, Downers Grove. They’d just put this on when I visited May 18, and ja, it’s pretty fresh. Very cloudy, almost dark yellow in a tall weizen glass. After frothing up under the tap, settles to a behaved, meringue-type head, with a lemony weizen smell. No need for a lemon slice on this one. Taste offers soft wheat texture, coriander traces, and that citrus zest, but it’s hit hard by banana and bubblegum. I’ll put that down to it’s being new; who knows how old the imported hefes I’d judge as "to style" were. Turns orangey toward the finish. Not bad. Would hope there are extra kegs mellowing out to sample later.
McDermottDrink (4593) reviewed Rauchbier from Emmetts Brewing Co. 18 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Imperial pint draught, Downers Grove. Deep garnet body under a half-inch white and brown head that slips off the sides of the glass as beer goes down. Smell is indeed smoky; not overdone, though, I need to nose in close to find it. Yes, smoky taste upfront, but more like a Gouda than the bacony whiff of Schenklera (if you ever get to a Tinkoff Rauchbier, it’s in that range. Anyway, equal balance of darker srystal malt and basic north German hop thread lets the rauch take center stage. Very nice.