Drakes Amber Ale

Brewed by Drakes Brewing Company
Style: Amber Ale
San Leandro, California USA

Bottle. Hop nose tells me it’s a Drake’s brew. Malty, coffee, toffee, caramel punch initially. Dark chocolate and hop bitterness in the finish.

12 oz’er from Saarlander. pours a slightly hazy amber with a creamy smooth off white head and nice lacing. a pleasant session type brew with aroma and flavors of mild caramel, toffee and just enough hop bitterness to tie it all together. nicely done.

12oz bottle, courtesy of Naven (?). Thanks, Dave! Pours a milky, brownish-yellow appearance; off-white head with good lacing. Wet malts and nougat in the aroma. Medium-to-full, sweet mouthfeel: caramel and nougat, with hints of milk chocolate. Medium, roasted malt and citrus finish.

Body is a brown ruby with a nice cream colored head. Aroma is caramel, floral, and almost like a soapy irish spring aroma. Tase is like a brown, caramel, nutty, like espresso, but with the same maltiness of a amber. More like a fusion beer.

A pretty dark amber ale, darker than most. Has a smilir taste to Fat Tire, but I prefer this one a little more. Has nice roasted flavor to it.

Pours significantly darker than I expected. Nutty and malty. Chestnut. Not even caramel as I was expecting from the color. It’s a malty beer, but a dry maltiness. Not really roasty either. Yeah, there’s hops, but they give more of a spice than anything else. Almost peppery and cinnamon. Very strange beer. Not bad at all, but just not what I expect from an amber.

Pours a nice mahogeny, eith a small white head. Nice sweet malt, as well as a slightly metallic aroma accent a nice roasted marshmallow. The flavor is more complex than I tought and shows off a nice balance between dark fruit and toffee sweeteness, as well as a slight hoppy bite. A very solid amber that is better than most.

Bottle -- thanks, aspedites!

Amber ales don’t have to be yawners, and Drakes is among a few west-coast breweries leading the charge. And their salvation need not lie in IPA-level hopping, as this one demonstrates.

The bewer pours a deep red-brown with a small head. Burnt caramel, roast nuts, and rotting wood on the nose. The aroma offers all of the above against an earthy, solid backbone, a sour hint, chewy malts but little sugar, full earthy / plum-skin hops on the finish. The mouthfeel is thin enough to be quite sippable, but buttery-smooth enough to provide ample body. This is a masterfully brewed beer and a welcome antidote to the amber ale boredom that sets in after one has sampled a few dozen of the large-micro ambers.