Summit Extra Special Bitter

Brewed by Summit Brewing Company
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
St. Paul, Minnesota USA

Sample from tap at the brewery. Pours amber with a light brown head. Aroma is soft malty, slight fruity. Flavour is lovely sweet with a good fruitiness. Finish is bitter sweet.

12 oz bottle. A random gift from my boss. Pours a deep amber colour with a thick rocky tan head. Persistent bead and a spritzy carbonation. Nice vienna/munich malt aroma. Light caramelly sweetness and a soft spicy hoppiness. Good balance of malts and hops. Low fruitiness and a very soft palate. Moderate bitterness. Nice caramelly character all the way through. A very lovely session beer.

This has a great looking pour, a deep, clear copper body with a creamy off-white head.. Very nice lacing. The aroma is soft garden flower scents over a caramel and toffee sweetness. Being me, I’d like more bitterness to the flavor, but it’s a smooth blending of sweet malts, a floral & grassy bitterness, and a touch of pears. Mild bitter finish. Pretty decent.

Whole Market, Lombard, IL

Dark copper to light chestnut in color. Dark cream colored head that diminishes to a thin lid, with a nice coating of lace. Light woody licorice with dark caramel and chocolate in the aromas. Some hints of grassy hops as well in the nose. More a brown ale scent. Very smooth and drinkable. That said also quite bland in a way. Light caramel and a woody component, not sure if it creeps in from the malt or the hops. Fairly boring in a British sort of way.

On tap at the brewery. OK, Summit isn’t the most adventurous or experimental brewery so I guess it will always struggle to excite the beer geek in us all, but it does produce some pretty solid offerings. I thought this was one of the best, and in a noticeably British style. If you want big, brassy, bold hops, this isn’t the beer you are looking for as the hops are quite earthy and fruity/spicy/tangy in a way that is quite common in British beers but rather difficult to describe accurately. Malt is more prominent than hop in the flavour profile but is, again, quite earthy, dusty and dry, again in a quite British style. All in all then, a pretty authentic and rather enjoyable experience. Perhaps a little gassy for my British palate. Oh and its a rather handsome deep amber colour with a slight reddish tinge.

Bottle from Pat’s. Pours deep coppery rubish with aroma of caramel malt, some fruit, and some toffee. Medium palate that is not terribly complex but has caramel bready malt flavors, in addition to some toffee and almond hints.

Draught pint at the Muddy Pig in St Paul, Minnesota, October 2006. Smooth creamy lasting moderate-sized white head atop a dark clear amber body....woody (oak, maple) faintly cidery nose, weak and pretty indistinct/unmemorable....dry woody-hoppy character on the tongue, twig-bark feel is interesting and gives some life to the filtered textures....lightly sweet up front (dried apple), dry and somewhat thin towards the finish. Pretty average I guess.

I got a 12 pack of this at John’s in Iowa City today. The label says that this is a limited edition 20th Anniversary beer. This poured with a dark copper colored body. The head was a yellow that is almost khaki. The aroma has some grainy elements with some fresh bread and a little hint of chocolate. There is also a little bit of caramel. The taste has some decent roasted peanuts with some slightly burnt hints of coffee in the aftertaste. Interesting, and dry on the finish. However, it starts sweet with each drink. A decent ESB. Far from Summit’s best effort. I have had this again a few months later. Still, an ok ESB, nut nothing special. Sampled yet again, this is a pretty good session beer with some nice notes of walnuts in the finish.