Eel River Certified Organic Amber Ale

Brewed by Eel River Brewing Company
Style: Amber Ale
Fortuna, California USA

Almost honey-like sweet aroma with floral notes . Very pleasant aroma. Light amber color with a thin head, but good lacing. Watery fore with a bit of grain and some mild caramel sweetness. Amazing something with such an assertive aroma can have so little flavor.

21-Jan-05 (12 oz bottle: Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa, CA) Upon pouring the beer, I stuck my nose in the glass and my first impression was, dammit, a bad bottle! Possibly just a reaction to the fact that this beer does not smell like an amber at all, but I still question the health of this beer. It smells and tastes very spicy and vegetal. No, this is definitely not right. Amber in color. Small, light tan head fades to a rim. It’s not worth picking out the details here, I want to retry with another bottle, though I just bought this a few days ago and put it straight into the fridge. (4, 3, 4, 3, 8, overall 2.2)

04-Aug-05 (Draft: Eel River Brewing Company in Fortuna, CA) Okay, can’t get any fresher than this, so hopefully the beer is better than what I had in the bottle several months ago. Certainly smells better. The nose is grainy, minimally sweet and lightly roasty, it smells very dry. Actually, it smells like the grains were freshly harvested. The lightly roasty grain aroma carries over into the flavor, with just a touch of sweetness and light bitterness. Again, it tastes extremely fresh. Dry on the palate, medium in body. Clear amber in color and is topped by a modest light tan head. Overall, a decent beer, and obviously much better than the previous bottle, which clearly was off.

What a disappointment. It pours with a nice head but has very little aroma. Tastes of cheap grains with little bitterness. It’s hard to completelly describe it because I dumped it after only two sips. The second sip was enough to confirm how lousy the first sip was.

Bottle poured a dark brown amber with a nice thick head and sticky lacing. Aroma is malty with a bit of caramel in the background. Flavor Is a sweet maltt with a light sweet finish.

Very nice copper colored ale, it has a complex malt & hop flavor and aroma. I believe it is one of the better amber’s on the market and will surely buy it again.

A somehow salty, musky malt aroma. Glowing bronze beer, I liked the Wyeth-esque barelyfield on the label and the logo on the bottlecap. Nice rafting head. Nutty sweet, not much bittering, biscuity. Struck me as being similar to Abita beers in some ways. This would have been good with some traditional beer-loving food: cheese, pizza, salami, Indian food. My overall affection for the beer exceeded the sum of its parts - there was nothing outstanding about the beer, but the overall effect is just right.

Bottle. Copper colored poor with smallish head, very nice malty aroma. Good sweet malt character, not much hops but overall very drinkable and a good thirst quencher. Nice session brew.

Reddish-copper. Nice nose, malty, a bit nutty, wispy cocoa. Very malty flavor, nice toffee, some light chocolate, sweet but not overly so. Mildly smoky and peaty, bit Irish Red-esque. Great palate, very rich and creamy. For something labeled an "amber", quite good.