Drakes Expedition Ale

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

Aroma of piney, resiny hop. Way hoppy. Reddish amber color with a beige head that fills the glass. This stuff seems to be alive. Starts a bit thin with resin hop, followed by some bittersweet malt. That evergreen aspect just won’t leave. This is an amber? There is a lot of dark malt flavor, but the hop tends to overbalance. Hop wins. Finish is grutchy memories of malt and a good hoppy bitterness. Huah! Memorably good.

12 oz bottle courtesy of Tom. Pours a dark brown caramel color with a medium beige head. Hops floating around. Aroma of caramel, malts and piney hops. Taste has caramel flavor and malty hops with a piney IPA finish. Pretty good.

From a 12oz Bottle. Pours a hazy cinnimon amber color with a thin layer of even off-white creamy head. Great dark malty aroma thats supplemented nicely by a kiss of citrusy grapefruit hops. Some fruity notes of golden raisins liven up the malt base that has a pleasant graham cracker tone and some subtle spiced cinnimon stick. Medium bodied, creamy carbonated mouthfeel. The commercial description says it all. A chewy malt base of lightly spicy bread crusts, honey and a hint of raisin start out on the palate, but this fades refreshingly into a powerful high alpha hop dry finish. Not overly done, the hops are both powerful enough to satisfy a c-hop craving, but able to allow the malts to provide a fantasticly dark, somewhat toasty, rich base. This is a great choice for the indecisive - it does everything well.

Floral nose with a creamy texture. herbal spicy flavor with a very faint sourness. This bottle had almost a year of age on it.

This is my first Drakes beer. Very peppery and spicy nose. Dark brown in color. Some floral hops as well. How this is classified as an amber I don’t know, although I think the style in general is slightly undefined. This is unique and pretty decent.

12 oz bottle via OhioDad (thanks Scott!).Pours a dark amber/brown with an average sized beige head. Nose is a little spicey and a bit hot and smells like a barleywine. Hmm this almost tastes like a thin bodied barleywine. Taste is hard to describe. Lots of spiceness but hard to make out exactly what. Perhaps a little cardomom and a dash of cinnamon, and some ginger. Has a hoppy astringant finish. Also is hot which is weird since it is low abv...is there chilli pepper in this? Light/medium bodied. High carbonation. Don’t really care too much for this one.

This was very good for a session beer. Bitter hops aroma with an herbal quality. Cloudy orange appearance. Flavor has oranges and black pepper. There are lots of hops but also a medium sweet malt base. Very smooth palate.

Pours a burnt amber color. Nice cayenne peppar like spiciness balances the floral hoppiness. Nice spicy flavor with some candi sugar and brown sugar accenting the nice hop finish. I agree with stines Amber huh? statement, but I liked the beer regardless of style.