Amber’s Honey Brown

Amber’s Brewing Company
Formerly brewed at Alley Kat Brewing Company
Style: American Dark Lager
Edmonton, Canada

leaves a white airy head in the glass. medium/dark translucent amber colour. has a pretty decent aroma. nutty fruit? maybe. smells good tho. oh. little hint of banana in it. upon tasting.... rapes my mouth. no sir, i don’t like it. sort of like flavourful dust. but the flavour isn’t good. just something else that isn’t nothing. hard to explain, but that’s the best way. its got flavour, but nothing good or that can be picked out as being a flavour. definitely has more "flavour" than canadian or coors light. all in all, i bought 6 of it, and i’m not really looking forward to finishing off the pack.

On tap at RATT on Campus. Clear AMBER pour (boourns) with a weak white foam that fades away quickly. Aroma is cheap malts and grains, toffee and caramel. Taste is mild honey, but very bland and grainy. When a supposed micro pales in comparison to the popular macro in this style (Sleeman), it can’t expect to do well.

Looks like crap, food coloring and water. Smells ok, but just like every other beer. Taste like crap, very watery lack luster flavour, I think they added more water to double the size of there batch of beer. Over all this beer is crap. So to summerize looks like crap, taste like crap, smells ok.

***review from July 13, 2006***
Beer smells ok, there is just enough sweet honey and malts to pass the grade. Almost zero head, no lacing at all - not that I expect too much from these types of beer. After 5 minutes it looks like a beer that was left on a ledge in your local watering hole for hours. A decent crystal clear brown beer is the only thing in your glass. You can taste the malts (decent), and it is slightly sweet, but lacks a good honey background. Comes with a minor sour linger. Mouthfeel is slightly oily (barely) an the maltness does attach to the sides of my tongue, but it’s very weak. Too bad about the slight sharpness in the aftertaste. Overall it’s not a beer to savour but it’s drinkable beer and non-offending.

Pours dark clear amber, pleasant caramel malty aroma. Flavour: a tad sweet, malty, with honey overtones. Very smooth, minimal hoppiness. No skunkiness at all! This one is pretty good; I’de buy this one again.

I agree with Oakes that new brewers are always a welcome treat on the local scene. Unfortunately, I think the best thing about this brewer is their very elaborate website. This particular product just didn’t work for me. Light is the operative description all around-- very little aroma, faintly sweet palate that is washed away by a boxboard finish (granted, this may be an indicator that my 6-pack is outdated, but I couldn’t find a date anywhere). It isn’t offensive, but it isn’t something with enough character to warrent buying again. I will remain faithful enough to keep an eye open for any new offerings from this brewer though!

New brewer, doing contract at Alley Kat right now. New brewers in Alberta are a good thing. I’d just hope that future efforts are braver than this light, sweet, caramelly brew. It’s got a really simple character, as befits the type, but not as befits my palate.

Although the beer is contract brewed by Alley Kat, Ambers does have an interesting web site www.ambersbrewing.com. Hazy honey-brown with a light head of moderate bubbles. I really like the colour. Fairly thin on aroma. A bit of a hop edge to the beer. Honey sweetness is just enough to be noticed but not overpowering. I could have a second.