1 liter bottle courtesy of Secret Santa (winter 07), 12th bottle sampled at the 1/28 Houston Tasting. Pour is almost all black with a thin khaki head. Aroma had a bunch of wood oak and some maltiness. Taste is big oak woodiness with many layers of flavor - roasty and malty. Quite a bit of smokiness as well. Nice body, overall very nice. Thanks Santa!

Sampled on draft this beer poured a murky very dark brown color with a medium sized creamy brown head that lingered forever and left good lacing. The aroma was bitter with wood, nut and a hint of cocoa. The flavor was bitter and astringent with wood, nut and cocoa. Long finish with growing astringency. Moderately full bodied. Meh.

East End has some of the most pleasingly unique beers I have ever tasted. You guys that live outside the local area really need to seek out these brews. I drink this beer to celebrate my 50th birthday. From a 2 week old growler, this stuff pours somewhat like a pale yellow lager with a hint of orange and has lots of rolling carbonation continuously rising from the within. Has a splendid aroma of wet straw and mild hints of fresh J&L blast furnace gravel. Such a mild impact greets the palate. Mild friendly flavors. I am really startled how well this stuff kept in a plain old clear bottle with a screw top. Much better than the cherry grisette, the absence of fruit lets the real base of this session beer shine on thru! Scott, you really know how to brew ’em. Even though there is a very mild, barely perceivable developing bitter presence on the finish of each swig, it is just enough to let you know it is a beer. Simple, facile, gentle, effortless, unhurried, and comfortable. Merry, pleasurable, sporty amusement. Trim, orderly and precise. I drank two big 22 oz mugs of this and barely caught a buzz, talk about session brew. These low alky beers really make beer drinken enjoyable. A breed someplace between a witbier and an excellent saison. As mentioned earlier, on the finish there is a mild unique fermented grass personality that manifests itself on the palate. I used to think fruit lambics were the perfect session brew, I don’t think I really knew what a session was till I come across this brew. Long live Grisette mild belgie ale! It is very tuff to find anything negative about this brew at all. A very easy beer for a lager lover to appreciate. Lacks the insulting personality that is so common in today’s genre of U.S. craft beers. Simply delicious, a refreshing regression to the basics of beer.

On tap at the East End Brewery. Poured from a pitcher that had been sitting for a while. Slight hint of tart sweetness in the aroma. Looks like a light brownish wheat beer of sorts, hazy. Absolutely flat, probably from it sitting in the pitcher, I’ll have to try this again in the future. Some amount of tartness on the palate and it does of course have a mild cherry flavor. Grassy saison background. An interesting variation on a session brew. Fun and friendly. Note: Re-tasted fresh from the tap at the brewery 1/12/08, carbonation was much better!

Got this courtesy of zebracakes, thanks cakes. What can I say, my localist real microbrewer. Real cool mini growler with a locking top. The aroma is interesting and faithful. It slowly glugs out of the bottle with a gentle slow pour. This is a very opaque dark brownish black liquid. The flavor is very complex and burned earth. It is as if somebody got a spatchula and scraped out some of the inside of an old J&L steel mill’s smokestack and mixed it into this glass. This appears to have a rather high alky content. A real mouth coating experience. Inspiring festive nighttime in a bottle. Annoying and irritating in it’s own mild special way. Taste reminds me of one of my favorite sweet stouts, but a little more offensive. More carbonation than I expected out of a growler. My feeling is if you like Bell’s Expedition, you better seek this out. Though classified as a Smoked, it is not more smoky in flavor than many fine imperial stouts. Same personality.

Sampled on draft this beer poured a mahogany color with a medium sized light brown head. The aroma was malty, roasty and bitter. The flavor was bitter, roasty and nutty malt mix with very subtle hops and a hint of smoke underneath.