Jack of the Wood Green Man ESB

Brewed by Green Man Brewing (Jack of the Wood)
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Asheville, North Carolina USA

Draught. Pours a fairly cloudy copperish color with a small light head. Nose sports apples, caramel, and the sharp bitterness I’ve come to associate with ESB’s. The mouthfeel is quite smooth and makes this an even more appropriate session drink. Malts are semi biscuity with caramel apple quality while the drier aspects of the flavor still kind of remind me of rubber. This is a well balanced and adequate representation of a style that I just cant get into.

Appearance: (It’s dark in the brewpub at night!) Clear, pretty, copper color. Nose: Not a whole lot in the aroma department. Subtle grains. Taste: Yummy and fun! This one had a "mystery burnt taste" that I spent the majority of the pint trying to pinpoint -- I settled on a not-unpleasant combination of grass, popcorn, ak-mak crackers, toffee, and peat, with a twist of nectarines and caramel. Very distinctive, judicious but mild hopping, nice. Palate: Smooth and easy. Overall: I got over the lack-of-nose thing pretty quickly. This one is distinctive -- it’s great. I also discovered that the hops are in the burp!

Flavor of this was very typical, nothing exemplary. Somewhat of a flowery fruity nose, with some biscuity maltiness, and just a hint of sweet honey and nuttiness in the finish..

Sampled at the Brewpub. Poured a red brick color. Aroma pouring out of this was of fruits and nuts. Mouthfeel was medium. Flavor was bitter as well as the finish.

Pours a dark copper color, with a small white head. Another mild aroma from these guys. Some hops, some citrus, not much else to pull out. Decent malt backbone to go along with mild hop flavors. A little bit sweet aftertaste with slight bitterness to it. Decent, not great.

Name: Extra Special Bitter
Date: 09/13/2002
Mode: Draft
Source: Brewpub

Hazy orange, slightly sweet malt aroma, medium malt body with a hint of sweetness, nice lasting long low bitter flavor,
-------- /> Name: Extra Special Bitter
Date: 09/13/2002
Mode: cask
Score: iiii

Wow! Creamy velvet body, hops, hops, hops, great hop aroma, lots of mild esb hop flavor, but not ’hoppy’, fantastic until the cask was kicked, one of the top 5 casks of all time. Wow!
-------- /> Name: Extra Special Bitter
Date: 08/12/2005

lots of carmel sweetness balanced by the wnderful esb bitterness, still a great esb, body is tweeked up a bit to the optimum level

Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 5/10; Flavor: 7/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 16/20
Rating: 3.4/5.0
Score: **4
-------- /> The score was calculated based upon the notes and an old scoring system.

Draught at Laughing Seed Dark amber pour with white head. Aroma of hops, toffee, and roasted malts. Very earthy flavors, various malts. There is also some skunky flavor lying around tied to a malty flavor. Good beer besides that skunk.

Draught in Laughing Seed, right next to Jack of the Wood. Short white lacing head, dark amber body. Potent aroma, fugglish hops balanced with toffee and light chocolate and caramel aroma. Great malt backbone, great ESB aroma. Lightly bitter, medium-full body is crisp and tingly with great character. Loaded with caramel and lesser notes of toffee. Funky English hops linger long in the aftertaste with toffee and caramel. Absolutely superb, robust and memorable yet easily quaffed on a daily basis. Tastes much better and fresher than the samples I had in Jack of the Wood.