Elysian Exchequer Bitter

Guest beer on draught at the 1221 E. Pike Street brewery in Seattle, Washington. Pours a clear copper amber brew with an average off-white head that has some nice retention and spotty lacing. Aroma of roasted caramel malt, a touch of brown sugar and some dry iced tea with fuggle style hops. Taste is medium bodied, some powdered toasted caramel malt flavors with a touch of black pepper. Finish is mildly bitter, slightly dry with a light malt and dry hop aftertaste.

draft @ capital hill location - dark reddish brown with thin, off-white head; bitter aromas of caramel and sweet malts; dry and sweet; flavors not too bitter, but not interesting either

On tap at Capitol Hill Elysian. Dark red with nice head. Bitter hops, yet not overwhelming and very smooth. Nice session beer that is malt forward, but doesn’t forget about the hops.

Deep amber with solid covering of creamed burnt caramel froth. Fruity hop and malt aroma. Again, quite fruity hops with a slight malt backbone in flavor. A good brew that straddles English ESB/American Amber territory. Nice balance. Mild bitterness that rounds out the profile.

Golden-accented dark brown with a thick caramel head. Looks great. Rich earthy-caramel nose with a slight minerally accent. Bitter, with a woody, toasty, minerally character. PNW bitterness + English taste = nice!

Draft at brewery in South Downtown Seattle, enjoyed in the company of after4ever. Pour is a clear mahogany with a smallish off white head. If they hadn’t done the hand pull in front of me, I think I would have doubted this was on cask. Aroma of crystal malt, and not really much else. Taste is straight crystal malt, this tasted pretty much exactly like Iced Tea. Crystal overpowered any subtlety that may have lied within on this one. This was not a very enjoyable beer for me as I am not a fan of the crystal malt taste. Per Tom’s comment, perhaps cask killed this one a bit?

Draft at Elysian Fields. Pours bright orange/ruby-highlighted medium amber with a thick, moussy tan head that shows a fair amount of bubbling. Big iced tea nose, almost lemony in its intensity. After that brilliant coloration, the nose shouldn’t have been a surprise...the overdose of crystal malt here will really get ya. It’s got a nice brightly carbed session-me session-me attack, medium body, it’s a quenching beer. Then that iced tea crystalness takes over and smacks you around. So puckery and tea-like that you almost pick up lemon on the finish. This’d be fine, if unspectacular, on a really hot day, but, truly, they need to get some balance in the specialty malt bill on this one. Kind of a surprise to see a blatant recipe error like this in an Elysian beer...or maybe no one else (other than Aspidites) dislikes this flavor as much as I do.
They also offered this beer on cask, which for my money sapped the life from it, and made it into flat, watery iced tea with a loose head. Again, though, I’m not the guy to come to for lucidly impartial ratings of casked beers. So put that together with a crystal overdose and my objectivity is just shot.