“American Amber Ales are like American Pale Ales but with more body, more caramel richness, and a balance more towards malt than hops (although hop rates can be significant, like in this one). Expect an enormous and delicious beer. Brewed for the Great Australian Beer Spectapular (GABS) 2015.”
Glassware: American pint.
Appearance: Candy red with soft pink highlights. It constructs a frothy two finger head which holds together well and works a fine lace as it subsides.
Aroma: Super sweet, sticky and malty as rich toffee and jaffa erupt out of the glass. Quite heavy on the booze – 10% ABV in fact. Picking up a lot of cocktail fruits like pineapple, guava, lychee and paw paw. Undertones of Malibu rum, toffee apple, Cointreau and burnt orange tying it all up. Weird, wacky yet wonderful.
Flavour: Veeeery hefty booze presence – prickly and slightly overpowering. It kind of hinders the delicious flavours that want to come through. We certainly get a good dose of sweet caramel malt and toffee but there isn’t enough hop character to balance it out. Bottling date shows its 6 months old so that could be part of the reason.
Mouth feel: Dense, sticky and sharp. Medium-full body, moderate co2. Mild bitterness.
Overall: Can’t actually remember this from GABS ’15 so we’d really like to try it fresh. Being an American style red ale we were hoping for a bit more hops. Just a little too heavy on the booze as well, we’d love to see it dropped to around the 8% mark in our opinion.