Crooked River Original ESB

Formerly brewed at Crooked River Brewery (Snyder Intl)
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Frederick, Maryland USA

Bottle. Clear orange with a white head. Spicy aroma. Hoppy. Well balanced. Some bitterness. Well made beer.

12 oz bottle. Clear orange yellow with a white head. Spicy hoppy aroma, with a nice hop presence. Nice hop and malt balance, with gentle bitterness and a decent hop flavor. Sweet malt very present. Spicy finish.

Bottled. Pour produced an average sized creamy off-white head that diminished to a thin layer after a few minutes. Beautiful med-dark amber color with burnished gold highlights. Caramel malt aroma nicely balanced by a floral hop nose. Flavor was of lightly sweet caramel malt, hops, and hop bitterness start to finish. Some toastiness emerged in the aftertaste. Light bodied, slightly watery, but with a nice soft carbonation. A very refreshing, thirst quenching ale. I enjoyed the balance of malt and hop characters in the aroma and flavor. For an ESB though I would have liked a tad more maltiness and firmer body. Still quite enjoyable and I ceratainly wouldn’t mind having it as a regular in my beer fridge. It would also be nice to taste this as a cask conditioned ale served on handpump. Thanks Drew!

Sampled at the Peoria Int'l Beer Festival. Orange-yellow with a small white head. Aroma is a nice meld of caramel malts and bitter hops. Flavor is initially bitter, but finishes malty sweet. Acidic aftertaste. Fantastic balance; the best of both worlds (hops and malt).

Rusty amber color with frothy light beige head. Fruit and flowers to the nose. Good balance to the flavor.

Head is initially average sized, frothy, off-white, mostly diminishing. Body is clear dark amber. Aroma is moderately malty (cookie, toasted bread), moderately hoppy (flowers, apricot, orange, resin). Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly sweet, moderately bitter. Medium body, watery/velvety texture, lively carbonation, lightly astringent, slightly metallic. Pretty good stuff, but still plenty of room for improvement. Aftertaste is somewhat edgy/rough/metallic, but the aroma is pleasant as is the balance. The label only says EKG hops, but it sure doesn't smell like it...some kinda blend, more likely. Good, but nothing superlative IMHO.

Paid $7.99 for a 6-pack (12 oz bottles). Medium amber, with a decent sized beige head. Kinda fluffy and soft. Smells bitter =) and grapefruity, without the hops of an IPA. Also has some roasted aroma in there somewhere. Not very bitter- slight grapefruit citrus, with a hint of a nut brown aftertaste. Not overwhelming at all. A pretty well rounded beer- would be good as a session, as there's nothing filling or strange to even non-beer drinkers here. However- it's a bit bland after awhile.

This is nice. Substantial citrus(orange/pineapple) aroma. Some bitterness in the taste with the citrus. Distinctive ESB sweet/sitrus malt taste.