Odell 90 Shilling

Brewed by Odell Brewing Company
Style: Scottish Ale
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

Hazy purplish red - minimal lacing - nose of toasted grains, light plum, other more innocuous malt characteristics - moderate malt sweetness, with notes of bread pudding and caramel - medium bitterness throughout, with a lot of toasted cereal grain flavor - balanced and easy-drinking, but rather bland and unimpressive - I usually find Odell beers to be underrated - not this one, though.

On Tap at the Three Dogs Tavern, Highland Park 14/10/2008 Malt aroma. Amber mid brown coloured with a crisp and slightly dry full malt finish.

12 oz. bottle from Plaza Liquors - Pours a deep amber color with a 3/4 finger thick light tan head. Very light lacing. Aroma is bready malt and light herbal hops. Again, the flavor is lightly sweetened dough with a touch of herbs and spice. A little thin on the palate. A decent beer.

Bottle. Almost no head with light amber body. Scent of malty alcohol. Flavor of malts with light sweetness. Balanced well, but with little complexity.

Poured into English pint glass. Beer pours dark copper color with a retained off white head. Aroma is malty with lots of bread and some light nuttiness. Flavor improves upon the aroma just a smidge with sweet (not overly) malt, light caramel and just enough bitterness to keep things balance. To me this is a really enjoyable beer. It is not a show stopper, but who wants to drink massive impy stouts and hop monsters all the time anyway. Quite an excellent session beer.

Nice deep clear amber pour with a finger of off-white head that quickly dissipated and left only light lacing. This is a nice session beer with its common ABV, nice fresh-baked bread aroma, and simple flavor of yeasty bread, slight hoppy bitterness, and touch of sweetness to balance it out. Unfortunately, being a nice session beer doesn’t make it a great beer. The thin, watery consistency and rather bland finish limit it to a nice easy-drinking brew.

A vigorous pour into my 25cl tulip glass produces four-fingers of amber stained, tan colored head. The beer is a rich red color that shows a brilliantly clear, deeply red stained, copper color when held up to the light. The aroma smells of sweet crystal malt, with a touch of toasted grain character, but also has a touch of berry and herbal hop character to it. The finish smells of freshly crushed, nicely browned whole grain bread crust, some hay like grain notes and even a touch of sweet tea character. The nose is definitely malt focused, but it has a bit too much crystal malt character. A greater malt richness from kettle caramelization might help, but I do like the light, but noticeable hop influence that is here in the nose.

Dry toasted malt, and caramelized bread crust notes are noticeable as this beer first hits my tongue. As it rolls across the palate the beer picks up a caramelized sweetness and a fruity berry character that sticks to the palate beyond what a beer of this strength would suggest. The viscous heft is kept from being cloying by a solid, biting bitterness and a sharp herbal hop character that adds some nice spiciness to the finish. The fruitiness is fairly noticeable here and I think comes from all three of the malt, hop and fermentation derived sources; it is mostly berry like with perhaps just a hint of citrus character.

The hop character plays a much bigger role here than one would expect in a more stock version of the style, but I definitely like the addition as it is needed to keep this from being cloying and from allowing the crystal malt character to run rough-shod over the profile of this beer. Not bad, and in fact even enjoyable. I could wish for a bit more richness in the malt character, but I am happily consuming my bottle of this beer right now.

Pours a dark amber color with a minimal tan head. It is much like a lot of amber ales, though perhaps smoother. Not the best beer ever, but I could still drink it all day.