John Courage

Brewed by John Smiths (S&N, Heineken)
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Tadcaster, England

Bottle: Not too crazy about this beer. Pours a nice dark orange color with a white head that dissapates quickly. I just couldn’t smell anything in this beer. And the tase to me was very bland, no real detection of anything, maybe a little hops.

on tap at a hotel bar in baltimore. mild malty aroma. clear amber. would have trouble telling this apart from yeungling without tasting it. flavor is classicly english: malty, with a decent balanced noble hop finish, on the malty side.

350 ml loose bottle from Sam’s Wines, Downers Grove. This may be an old bottle (I can only find a code on the neck: 3108N L220 07). But I don’t mean that in a bad way: When I popped the cap, I immediately got a nice whiff of mellowed, raisin and prune-y malts. I’m thinking that’s outside the range for either a bitter or an amber. Poured in a glass tumbler, it’s a fiery reddish golden, a little lighter in the narrower part of the glass, with a thin head atop. Taste does not quite match that buildup: At first, I find a nice sharp English bitterness, but malts are kind of grainy, with some fruity esters. A bit of Burton water hardness kind of keeps the interest down. Could all of the goodness have crowded into the head space, waiting to escape first? Well, it’s pretty standard f’r’all that. They need to prepare something else to import to the states.

Pours into a pint glass. Clear dark orange/brown color. No head. Aroma is metallic, very metallic. Strange. Maybe its those crazy English hops? Flavor is watery kind of boring with a little bit of malt as the main and boring charachter. Blah blah blah.

12 oz bottle. Aroma is metallic malty with DMS notes present. Boiled vegetables. transparent copperish color with a frothy off-white head and decent lacing. Sweet maltiness to start, turning grainy and caramelly with maltiness. Some milkiness in the finish. No hops present. Pretty dull and bland. No wonder they retired it.

Interesting beer, this one. Much lighter than expected from an England import. There were definite bitter notes that seemed to change somewhat about half way through. Some fruit is evident. Unique.

Pours a weak transparent amber color with a thin white head that disappears quickly and leave very little lacing. Not a good start for this beer that I’ve been wanting to try. The smell is faint malt, maybe some toffee? to it... Not much else. I don’t detect any hops smell to it. I’m searching for some malty taste but don’t find much, to my dismay. Still no hops present. It has a smooth taste/feel to it but not as much zip to it as I was looking for. Finally finding a little hoppiness in the palate but still not much. This drinkability is giving me problems... I don’t know too many situations where I would want this amber over any other I’ve ever tried. This is a pretty big let down for me. I guess it isn’t hard to drink but then again it isn’t fun to drink... I guess that’s all I have to say while staying constructive...

Smooth beer with noticeable but balanced hops. Beautiful amber color and an average head. Had it Flagstaff over a few games of pool and would take it over standard American macros, but it wasn’t all that.