Flying Fish ESB

Brewed by Flying Fish Brewing Company
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Cherry Hill, New Jersey USA

Appearance is a carrot orange with a thin frosting of head. Cloudy with slowly upfloating carbonation. More head would have been nice. The smell is dual malt aromas creating a tug-of-war: the spicy pale malt and the toasted amber malt. The hops are spicy and flowery both. It’s a very spring-y beer, with a lot of pop. The hops in the flavor shine though here, giving a refreshing, spicy and estery taste. The caramel-tinged malt adds more flavor. A real burst of disparate tastes. The body on this beer is fantastic: it is thick and creamy and whips into a foam when agitated. There is lots of flavor here: spicy, flowery, roasted and yet refreshing.

Bottle: Poured an amber color with a nice head. The aroma was citrus and pine. The flavor had some citrus, pine, hops, bitters, and sweet malts. The is a very drinkable brew.

12 oz bottle from Spirits RB. Pours a nice looking clear effervescent orange amber with a larger foamy off white head. Aroma is malt dominant with cereal grains leading the attack on your nostrils followed by a slightly sour/sweet aroma with some citrusy hops roudning out the rest of the aroma. Flavor is similar is to the aroma with lots of cereal grains and a slight sourness. Thinner bodied with a watery finish and average carbonation. Okay for a session brew.

bottle, via trade with imadeadguy, golden amber color with some white foam and lace, aroma ha some malt, fruity caramel, flavor has chocolate, cashew, plums going, bitter cocoa finish

The bottle says ESB Amber Ale and it tastes more like an amber than an ESB. Sweet caramel malts in the nose. More of the same malts right up front followed by a mellow hop tinge in the finish. A real nice easy drinking beer that satisfies as it goes down.

Draft. Sweet and very drinkable. Pints upon pints go down so easy especially for 2.50. Sweet caramel malts and not much bitter hops but enough to balance it out. Not much of an ESB for me but still pretty good.

Bottle. Whitish head quickly becomes nothing more than a ring. The American slant must be the slightly higher carbonation than an English bitter. It’s a great alternative to the stuff your friends are likely to have in their fridges, but they can drink it too. Was that much better when it was $5.99 a six-pack. I kind of wish they would just dump the ’American’ altogether and try a true bitter. In these days of 7-8% offerings, this amounts to a session beer. Needs just a little more body.

Sampled from a 12 oz brown bottle this beer poured a hazy orange-amber color with a small orange-white head. The aroma was tart, fruity, hoppy and had a touch of caramel. The flavor was sour, nutty, bitter and had a fruity hops presence and a rich malty undertone. The finish was long sour fruity hops and sweet malts. Solid.