Empyrean LunaSea ESB

Brewed by Empyrean Brewing Company
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Lincoln, Nebraska USA

Pale Copper color with a thin white head. Strong hops aroma. Well balanced hops and malt flavors.

Nice copper color thats slightly chill hazed with a solid cream colored head thats about a finger high and recedes fairly slowly and some lace shows up but drips back and clears up quickly. Smell is a pretty nice ESB style nose with a toasty sweet malt, slight caramel and balanced well with floral dried hops; Cluster variety maybe. Taste is more of the same with a nice mixture of toasty caramel malts and floral dried hops, bitterness kept in a calm even manner, nothing overwhelming, simple yet subtle and enjoyable. Starts out toasty sweet with light quick fruitness that gives away to caramel toasty biscuit flakes. Finishes easy and lingers some floral hops bitterness thats very smooth and easy. Good medium body feel, lightly creamy and very quaffable and enjoyable. A decent ESB I'd have again.

Definitely better on tap than from the bottle; wonderfully mellow and not too bitter. Superb.

Very smooth, with very little aftertaste. Good hop flavoring, just enough to not be overpowering.

On tap at Lazlos in Lincoln, Nebraska. Copper color with a rich white head and good lacing. Big nose of hops and fruits. Good mouthfeel, and dry finish. Solid offering.

Appearance: clear, deep amber hue, with a shortish head atop. Aroma: abounding! Rich and malt-accented, flowing out from the instant the cap is cracked off, sweet, fruity, caramelly, toasty, and just damned nice. Taste: those very same flavors continue and treat the tongue, on down to the tummy. Hops provide a tidy, tasty shuffle on the tastebuds up front, then slowly fade. Malt is copious and constantly delivers rich, complex flavor. All ESBs should at least try to be this good, and it’s a pity that most don’t. I could sit with these for a spell, that’s for sure!

From a stubby twist off 12 oz. bottle with a coded freshness date on the bottom rim of bottle. Poured a cloudy golden/orangey hued light brown with a foamy off-white head that settled into a thin sudsy, bubbly lacing. Aromas of caramel and grain, apple fruity, mineral, and floral, leafy hops. Good carbonation and a crisp, dryish, smooth medium-light bodied mouthfeel. Pleasant tasting, barley, grain and caramel, a buttery apple fruitiness, mineral, softly spicy, leafy herbal hops, more brisk than bitter, and a dryish grainy, caramel finish. A really nice ESB, very quaffable, easily the best thing I’ve had from Empyrean so far, well worth trying if you like British style beers.

Poured amber with thin off white head...smell is first very cookie dough, fading into a mild floral hoppy aroma...not quite what I expected...taste is a nice interesting mix of hops, malt, then hops...doesn’t have the sour bitterness as most in this style, but more of an APA type spicy bitterness...another pleasant surprise...not bad! Thanks to eboats for this one!