Red Oak Amber Lager

Brewed by Red Oak Brewery
Style: Oktoberfest/Märzen
Whitsett, North Carolina USA

Sampled at the 10th annual Brewgrass festival in Ashville. Amber color with light hazy and a light head. Lightly toasted lagerish grain. Nothing off at all in the aroma, just straight forward. Toasted grain flavor with a creamy sweetness. Some fruity notes hiding in there and a lightly bitter lingering finish. Interesting and enjoyable. Medium creamy body.

Draught. Pours a cloudy red-orange with small, but lacy, white head. The aroma is fruity with tons of dirty esters and some caramel. The flavor is, yes, as NachlamSie said, taco shells, which are especially noticeable in the finish. There’s a faint hoppy bitterness, leaves, and various vegetal tones. A hint of DMS comes and goes. Interesting, but doesn’t do anything for me. I was getting really turned off by the end of the glass.

From notes 11/28/02: Hazy amber coloring. Plenty of yeasties floating. A bit of a sour taste due to a recipe change with the new Brewmaster at Red Oak (more sour malts utilized). A malty, sour aroma. Not sour enough to turn your nose up to. Medium mouthfeel. For different batches, it seems the sourness fades in and out. There is no one taste lately for Red Oak. Drinkability to some is high average due to the fact that this is Greensboro’s homebrewed beer. Most of the locals enjoy it. Some have turned away due to the new recipe, but most say it’s the best around. I try to "Think globally, drink locally", but this beer has gone from average to downright sucking.

draught. Pours a very cloudy red with a malty sweet aroma of apples and thin, non-descript, papery hops. The first thing noticed in the flavor is a distinct, defined note of hard taco shells. There are vegetal notes abound with suggestions of lettuce, pepper, maybe I’m now imagining beef to go with this liquid salad. This is certainly unique, and I guess the weird flavors don’t quite turn me off, though I could definitely see this is something most people would not enjoy. What really does this beer in is the snowballing diacetyl that becomes bearing with each sip.

16 oz. Draught. Amber with small whitish head. Very little aroma, but I could detect a sweet grainy character wth some effort. Light to medium body , but not watery, and with medium carboantion. Very sweet carmal, grainy flavor that had a certain funkiness that I can’t pin down. LIttel in the way of hops balance left the quidkly fading finish distinctly sweet. Red Oak is in the process of building a new brewery in Burlington, NC. Hopefully, they’ll be able to improve their offerings.

Not to impressive, I have had this beer at several locations over several months, Each time I have had it it tastes like butterscotch. I thought the first or second time maybee they had a little diyasitol infection at the brewery and thought I would give it a second chance. Three strikes your out

Draft beer. Ruby-amber color with small white head. Not much to this beer, some malts Some bitter hops. Grapefruit among other fruits.

The perfect beer. My all time favorite. Red Oak smeels of fresh hops and malt. A true treat. Red Oak uses no preservatives and it tastes accordingly.