Humboldt Hemp Ale

Brewed by Firestone Walker Brewing Co.
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Paso Robles, California USA

Bottle. Dark ruby amber, clean and criap ruby appearance. Short lived head. I picked up hints of coffee in the aroma. I also tasted hints of coffee as well. Would be more enjoyable with a little less water. Tastes and smells like watered down coffee.

Bottle. Deep brown pour that has a great ruby shade through light, and about 2 fingers of khaki head. Aroma is dark malt, brown sugar, hops, chocolate. Tastes rich, chocolatey malty, with some brown sugar and hop notes. This one comes off like a scwarzbier.

Draft. Light brown color. Sweet malt aroma with hints of roasted malt. The flavor is similar, pretty good mouthfeel.

A brown beer with a super sweet malty and earthy aroma. Flavor is sweet and earthy. This is not really that good. Too sweet and too earth. Rather unpleasant really. Ughhh!

Dark pour that looks basically black, with head that didn’t hang around for long at all. Smell was a different sort of dark ripe sweet fruit, and roasted malt-ish. Taste was more nutty and kind of like a nut brown ale, and has slightly low carbonation, making it a touch watery since its body was on the thinner side as well. This wasn’t bad, but not what I was expecting, and nothing to go out of the way for, I thought.

Sacramento Sports and Brew Fest. I seemed to have been cursed this Saturday to drink nothing but unispired, blah beer. This beer fell in line with todays theme. An aroma of subtle iced tea with no real signifigant character other than that. I tried, but zip. Appearance was a deep reddish/copper color, almost bordering on brown. Flavor was just uninspiring. Very little to hang your taste buds on to except some sweetness from the malts. While it wasn’t offensive, it was just simply boring.

Pours with a three-finger thick, darkish, amber-tinged, tan colored head that sits atop a opaque, dark, concentrated amber colored brew that shows a brilliantly clear, ruby hue when held up to the light. The aroma is lightly sweet and fruity (soft berry notes) up front, but then a spicy, herbal, hemp aroma comes through almost immediately. A touch green, with a hint of black pepper, some notes of rosemary and hints of pine needles make up the hemp aromatics. While the hemp is the most notable thing about the aroma, it is still fairly soft overall.

Lightly sweet with a definite bitter edge to it from the get go; unlike a typical beer the bitterness actually seems to lessen a bit as the beer slides past the tongue and down the throat. Fruity notes of raisins and a generic berry flavor contribute to the flavor as does some dark malt notes of well toasted malt and not quite burnt caramel. Did I forget to mention the hemp, it is definitely here, though it is definitely not overwhelming; it contributes a green, concentrated grassiness, touches of menthol, something like pine tar and a definite resinous character that is unmistakable.

This is not a bad beer, it certainly has an interesting ingredient, but I can’t really see this being added to beer on its flavor merits alone.

Clear chestnut brown, surprising initial aroma of earthy pot (is this the power of suggestion?) gives way to sweet chocolate. Mostly chocolatey palate, a slightly grassy/earthy quality, smooth mouthfeel with medium body, clean finish. I thought this was an excellent brown ale.