ESA - Extra Special Amber
Square One Brewery & Distillery

I had this on tap at the source in Lafayette Square. Dark amber color with a thin tan head. Aroma of dark caramel and toffee, touch of citrus on the finish. There is mango, maybe a little orange. Taste is more dark caramel. Lot of sweetness, nice citrus bitterness, on the finish. Not grapefruit, really more like orange. I don’t detect the butter a good friend gets in this beer. Seems Ike a nice ESB. Good mouth feel. Very drinkable.

On-tap at the brewpub.

Shining, clear bronze body with a nice, white sticky head.

Nose is of caramel, cotton candy, a subtle fruitiness and rough, unabashed pine.

Full in the mouth, I could've stood a bit less carbonation, but I'm a real ale nut. A nice, grainy body with surpisingly little crystal malt sweetness. A nice note of strawberries, heavy pine and a dying earthiness with traces of butter. Finishes dry and quenchingly bitter with the diacetyl note blanding in with the rest of the body.

It's like a small Arrogant Bastard fermented with an English yeast strain.


I'm surpsied how much I like this ale as I tyipically dislike ambers due to their heavy crystal malt flavor and I almost always find diacetyl entirely off-putting. Somehow, this beer comes together pleasingly.

Great entry from a solid new brewpub.