Buzzards Bay Pale Ale

Formerly brewed at Just Beer (fka Buzzards Bay Brewing)
Style: English Pale Ale
Westport, Massachusetts USA

Dark amber color with medium white head. Medium bodied with sweet chocolate malt flavors and a lasting earthy hop finish.

Bottle. Nice fruity nose, and thick malty mouthfeel finishing with some hops. The hops are not very bright and what started off as something with possibilities ended disappointingly.

Aroma was somewhat stale. Copper body with decent white head. Flavor was ordinary almost like a brew that is to be just abit better than swill.

This beer pours a deep orange gold color from a 12oz bottle. Medium sized white foamy head. Aroma is bready malts and fruity. A medium bodied pale ale. Malts are fruity and sweet. Hops are mild and slightly citrusy. Kind of reminiscent of the standard slightly hoppy brew pub Pale ale. OK, but not exceptional. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and smooth. Aftertaste is slightly sweet.
Earlier Rating: 12/17/2003 Total Score: 2.5
Orange gold color. Aroma is malty with an unidentified somewhat funky smell. Light to medium bodied Pale Ale. Malts are nutty and sweet. Hops are bitter and a little harsh. It’s a touch vegetative and metallic, and then it’s a touch sour and harsh. Not a good combination. Mouthfeel is thin. Finish is dry. Aftertaste is slightly bitter.

Hard to believe it’s been 5 years since I’ve had something from this brewery. Bottle ala jjpm74. Bright orange amber color with a moderate ecru head. Simple, yet effective toasted malt aromas. Hints of mild spice in the background. Light caramel malt and hint of raisin in the flavors. Quite dry. A cross between an amber and a pale. Seems to get dryer and slightly acidic and biting leaving the malt behind in the end.

(12 oz bottle: Obtained in trade with jjpm74, thanks John!) Caramely and sweet nose is pretty one-sided, and seems a bit floral, but it’s pleasant enough to make me look forward to tasting the beer. But sometimes, we are deceived, and the nose has tricked me into getting my hopes up. This is a pretty strange tasting ESB. It’s sweet and caramely without tasting all that malty, and a modest bitterness offers a reasonable balance, but it tastes fairly grainy, a little vegetal, and somewhat grassy, and an unexpected roasty character pops up in the finish. This doesn’t taste bad, but the strange combination of flavors is leaving my tongue in a tizzy. By looking at the significant carbonation bubbles rising through the beer, you’d think it would seem over carbonated on the palate, but this is not the case; it’s actually quite smooth and easy. The beer has a rather chalky mouthfeel, yet is soft and oily on the palate. A careful pour yielded a solid inch of off-white head, and the considerable supply of carbonation bubbles rising through the clear, dark amber body helped keep the head to a pretty thick height for the duration of the session. Lacing is sporadic, but in patches. I don’t dislike this beer, but the flavor profile just seems to stick out in all directions, and things just aren’t coming together well for me.

This beer came to me from my beer club. I have never encountered any of this brewer’s beers before -and based on this sampling I have not been missing much. Sampled from a 12 oz brown bottle this beer poured a bright bronze color with a large tan head. The aroma is nutty malts and sharp floral hops. The flavor is sour malts with a bitter floral hop presence reminiscent of windex. There is a off vegetal malt undertone that lingers on the finish. Yuck.

Bottle from sampler set. Light brown color with a small frothy off-white head that was mostly diminishing. Average pine and citrus aroma. Medium body. Moderate bitter flavor with a small bitter finish of average duration.