Extra Special Bitter
Triumph Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Extra Special Bitter on tap @ Triumph

Appearance:
Amber/auburn color with no visible carbonation and no head.

Aroma:
Blueberries? Light malt, citrusy hops

Taste:
Again blueberries (why?) with some light malts and a citrusy aftertaste. The flavor is mild at best.

Mouthfeel & Drinkability:
No carbonation to speak of. Felt like drinking bitter water.

Served cool in a pint glass this shows a hazy burnt amber color with a very sturdy off-white head and lacing to match. The aroma is bready malt and a happy kiss of citrus hop. The flavor is a mellow blend of malt graininess, hints of rye and brown sugar even. Again, I like the presence of some hop character here that you don't always get from ESB's, some bitterness! Very nice. This is plenty drinkable and has a smooth lightly carbonated feel. Better than most ESB's and recommended.

This beer was a bright reddish copper color that was very clear and no visible carbonation.
The head was thick, creamy off white and stuck around for quite some time. Additionally a huge amount of lacing remained in the glass after the beer had fled the scene.

Slight roasted malt aroma that also had a minimal floral dimension to it.

Flavor up front was of slightly sweet roasted malt with a zap of English hop bitterness. This quickly faded to a smooth finish with almost a mineral like quality.

(sorry, didn't taste a blueberry in the bunch)

Medium to slightly heavier mouth feel was nice. (not a heavy mouth feel!)

I thought this was nicely balanced with the right amount of hop bitterness to match the initial roasted malt flavor.

My favorite beer at Triumph brewery. It's served at a warmer temperature than their other beers, at a little cooler than room temperature. I think their term is "cellar temperature." Anyway, that gets a little getting used to, and is distracting until you ignore it. But the beer is just fantastic looking with great head that doesn't dissipate. The aroma is a malt and fruit combo that is good but doesn't grab you necessarily. The taste, however, does, with its balance and deeper flavors that were represented in the aroma. Oh, I said just "fruit" before because it seems the kinds of fruit present are a bit different from for each batch they produce (or perhaps when you get it). Mostly in the citrus family, but there is variation.

A - Amber to light auburn brew with a creamt head and copius amounts of lacing.

S - Blueberries, light malt (faint) with some citrus hops, but it is hard to pick anything out through the blueberry.

T - Blueberries. WTF? Then shifts to a light malt with a bit of a watery aftertaste with a touch of rye spiciness? Bland, medium bitterness. Very disappointing.

M - Very smooth, thin refreshing, a bit watery.

D - Meh. I didn't even want to finish it. Kind of lame. The blueberry thing is just plain bizarre, the spicy rye didn't mesh with any of the rest. Definitely not my type of beer.

Incredible looking ESB. This is the only time the appearance of a beer has caused me to gush. Pours with the cascading effect and settles to a bright amber color. Capped with a thick tan head that does not fade and leaves a sheet of lace along the sides of the glass.

Toasted malt aroma with citrus hop notes.

Biscuity malt flavor with some fruitiness. Nice English hops, but not overdone - enough to balance and show up int he flavor profile. Creamy and very well balanced.

Medium bodied, chewy, and very smooth. Easy to drink - great session beer.

Triumph- New Hope

ESB on the hand pump.

Appearance- Dark mahogany brown, cloudy with a thick velvety head. Serious lacing down the glass.
Smell- Srong earthy tones. Moss, tree bark, wet wood, dirt/ earth. Strong hops.
Taste- Hops! Srong earthy hops. bits of moss, leaves, and wood. An interesting flavor, quite nice.
Mouthfeel- Light and very smooth. Coats the tongue and goes down without a fight. No bitterness and no carbonation.

Overall- A nice room-temperature ESB pulled from hand! A nice earthy hop flavored beer!!!

Fabulous looking ESB. Beautiful clear ruby amber. Head about a thumb's width thick. And it was thick. Never went down.

Taste has a good hops presence. Mellowed out by the cask, I believe, which I find to be a common phenomena. The biscuity malt, which I find every appealing in good ESBs is there, but it only peaks out now and again. The pleasant British hops dominate though, but I wouldn't call this unbalanced. You just aren't experiencing the subtelties of the malt profile you normally find with most ESBs which are bottled or on-tap.

Smooth mouthfeel. Since it is cask, this should be expected.

Drinkable? Perfect for sessions.

This was another of the twists that hit me during the evening of sampling. I'm generally not a big ESB fan. I prefer more malt, and lean toward the milds. However, this was the cask conditioned offering, and I've found these to be the most interesting beers at Triumph. So it was with mixed anticipations that I moved to this one. It had a rich brown color with a good off-white head. It had a clean malt and hop aroma with only a hint of dark fruit. The taste was well rounded, and the moderate temperature of the pull presented a mild beer that allowed you to enjoy both the malt up front and the hops in the finish. It was a medium bodied beer with a dry finish. The mild a refreshing nature of this beer impressed. It drives home my growing feeling that serving beers below their designed temperature may drive some of the characteristics we don't want in these beers.

This beer came from the hand-pump at the Princeton location.

The color was copper with a tan head. The head appeared very creamy, almost like a Boddington's style nitrogenated head, however no nitrogen was used in the "carbonation". Head lasted longer and was thicker than most of Triumph's beers (maybe the glass was a bit cleaner?).

The smell was predominantly malt, with a slight citrusy hoppiness.

Taste was somewhat sweet with a pungent hop flavor. I thought I detected a bit of aromatic malt in the flavor. Bitterness was well balanced by the malt.

Though not nitrogenated, the beer was very creamy--definitely boddington's like. Much more body than boddington's, though. The creaminess was accompanied by a fairly low carbonation level...counterintuitive to how long the head lasted.

It was a pretty easy drink, one of Triumph's better brews. The hand-pump has been pretty much hit or miss with them, when they've been good, I'd be willing to have more, but when they've been bad, the first one is generally hard to finish.