McGuires Extra Special Bitter

Brewed by McGuires Irish Pub & Brewery
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Pensacola, Florida USA

I was told this was a pale ale, but apparently from the description on the webpage, this appears to be the ESB. Nice hop selection, seem to be goldings. I didn’t see the recipe on the chalk boards in the brewery section. I thought this could use a little more amber color. Still, this was my favorite of the five I tried tonight.

Draft. Very small tan head that mostly diminished, no lacing, no carbonation observed, transparent, and an orange hue. Nose was malty, caramel, hoppy, and crisp. Flavor was sweet, lightly bitter, malty, caramel, hoppy, citrus, and a hint of pine. Mouthfeel was smooth and light in body. Not super bitter tasting and IMO could use more bitterness to make it taste even better.

This draft brew from a beer festival poured a small sized head of foamy fine to medium sized white colored bubbles that were quickly diminishing and left behind a transparent uncarbonated brown colored body. The mild aroma was malty sweet and nutmeg. The mouth feel was weakly tingly at the start mediumly tingly at the finish with a mellow hoppy aftertaste. The flavor contained notes of malt hops and mild caramel. A decent one that I would consider buying again.

Date: 09/01/1996
Mode: Draft
Source: Brewpub

clean amber, thick creamy head producing bealtiful lace, crisp hop aroma, great hop flavor (too much for an english esb, but tasty), great lasting bitter finish pale, munich, chocolate, cara pils, chinook, willimenette

Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 8/10; Flavor: 7/10; Palate: 5/10; Overall: 16/20
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Score: **4
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Sampled at Brewgrass Fest. This one had a beautiful creamy tan head and nice lacing (porbably partially due to the serving method...but I still liked it) on a really dark brown body. Aroma was of toasty malts. I had a hard time picking out much hops in the bouquet, but then again I also had a hard time getting upwind of all the damn smokers! I really enjoyed this beer, although for some reason it reminded me more of a scotch ale than an ESB.

Clear, bright copper with a dense, creamy head (nitro pour). Rich bready, toasty aroma. Notes of biscuit and black pepper at first, then a really "English" hop finish. Not bad - Sampled at the 2005 Asheville Brewer’s Jam.