Sap Vampire Maple Lager
Amber's Brewing Co.

Pour is deep red with lots of browns. Small one finger head. No lacing.

Aroma is very cherry and lots of maple.

Not sure if this one has soured or not. But, it's still nice and delightful. Flavors are light and crisp. Red apple, yeasty, maple, cherry, peach, light, airy, crisp. Perfect for fall. High carbonation detracts, IMO. Sweetness is fluid and forward. Very little bitterness.

Not sure I love it, but it unique and different. Definitely one of the better Canadian brews I've had. Nothing overly remarkable, but worth a try.

 

 

Sap Vampire Maple Lager pours a dark amber color, with a small lacing head. The smell is rather sweet, and as the name suggests full of maple. The taste is full of maple flavors; very strong. Overall this beer is different, and the maple is very strong, worth a try, might not be for a lot of people.

 

 

Very tasty beer. I liked it warm or cold, it always tasted good to me. I'm not much for the vampire theme but you can't go wrong with a beer like this. Also, the bit of an afteraste is a good one, with seemingly a hint of molasses, even though the bottle states maple lager.

 

 

341ml bottle poured into a 16oz pint glass.

A - Pours with a finger-and-a-half of fizzy tan head. The hue is an amber, maple brown. The head settles down to a nice cap on-top.

S - Really strong malty backbone, with a generous maple aroma upfront. Buttery, toffee malt and light nuttiness round out the scent.

T - Full maple flavor upfront, with a nice sweetness to it. Feels natural and delicious. A simple flavor with notes and smokiness and caramel malt. Really, really enjoyable.

M - It has a pretty thick bodied feel. Carbonation is on the lower side, but it fits the brew well.

D - A personal favorite of mine. It tastes fantastic and goes down smooth, and the sweet malt here is just irresistible.

I bought this 6-pack while visiting Edmonton. Maples are not native to this area but I selected it because it seemed creative.

It pours with a light creamy beige head which dissipates within a few minutes with not much lacing. The colour is really close to real maple syrup, perhaps a little darker but that could be because the mug holds a thicker amount of liquid than the syrup bottle.

The smell has a small amount of maple but not the sharp maple smell of real maple syrup (comparing it to Canada No. 1 Medium maple syrup). Otherwise not much else to the smell, maybe some butter and bit of citrus.

The taste is definitively maple syrup. But more like pancakes with maple syrup, than just syrup by itself or, say, french toast or that tree taste that some maple syrup has. Not much on the hop side (only in aftertaste), and some tastey malt. It kind of tastes like carbonated maple syrup but this beer seems to lose carbonation a little quick. Light-medium body, not overly sweet though.

Overall, I like it, but only when cold. I could drink a few of these but wouldn't make a the only beer of the night. A good mix of maple flavour and beer, balanced and integrated well.

A - Pours dark amber red, finger of head with little retention and no real lacing.

S - Burnt sugar and maple syrop off the top. Quite sweet on the nose, finishing with some toffee and caramel.

T - Bitter caramel malts off the top, but the true flavours emerge on the finish. Reminiscent of buttered pancakes with maple syrop lingering on the tongue. A tamed down version of a maple ale, but the syrop comes through strong enough to remind you of its presence.

M - Medium bodied ale, goes down smooth but is a tad dry on the finish.

D - Easily drinkable with unique flavours, though a sweetness that does not overwhelm the palette. Quite impressed with this one and I would recommend it to any fan of sweeter ales.

Picked this up on a whim. Gotta try a maple beer while in Canada right?

A- haven't had a beer from a twist cap in quite some time. Pour is dark red with little head that dissipates quickly.

S- its a maple lager, and rightfully so it smells like maple syrup.

T- not as sweet as the nose leads on. Big maple taste. Very clean and natural flavor. Its actually got a surprising amount of hops on the finish

M- medium to light body. Good carbonation.

Overall- Didn't have high hopes but was pleasantly surprised. I don't know how many I could drink in a sitting.

A - actually looks like maple syrup with a thumb of head and decent lacing
S - sweet maple, nutty with light fresh grass
T - wow talk about sweet, maple syrup and nutty roast malt with a woody note
M - a little sticky like syrup and generally sweet, coats the mouth
D - a delicious Canadian desert, compared to most maple infused beers Amber's REALLY went after it, very tasty but probably wouldn't want to drink more than a few in a sitting

A- Is a rusty color and there are lots of floating bits suspended, therefore making this somewhat hazy...could this be crystalized maple syrup or sugar? The head starts out nice and foamy, eventually settling to a frothy layer over the brew. What looks like very modest lacing initially is actually decent clingy foam on the side of the glass. Not bad looking at all, except for the suspended particles.

S- Very sweet aromas of maple taffy and/or syrup some moderate grainy malt and yeasty bread like creaminess dominate the smells here. On the finish, it becomes much drier and leaf like, but not bitter by any means.

T- Ugh...this tastes absolutely terrible. There is absolutely no maple flavor, but rather a woodsy sourness that resembles red cooking wine. There isn't really anything else to describe the flavor going on here!

M- Is actually fairly thin bodied for such a powerful smelling and the dominant flavors provided. The carbonation isn't overly palate scrubbing which helps this to be a clean, yet creamy brew.

D- This is one of the least drinkable beers that I've had or probably ever will have. If this tasted as well as the aromas let on, I'd be in heaven, but rather I ended up in Hell. I couldn't finish my bottle and the sewer system thanked me for the gift. I don't know how anyone can really drink this?!

I get the whole vampire thing now - this is a rustic, shadowy tone of amber that, not to worry vampires, allows no sunlight to penetrate through it. It looks like a species of the night. Its head is ample only enough to make a crescent, rather than full, moon which is perhaps better for our safety (oh wait, that's werewolves. Nevermind that thought.)

The scores (and appeal) from here on in depend entirely on the size of your sweet-tooth. The aroma strikes me as pure maple syrup or something of the like (maple fudge, maple brittle, maple sugar). It reminds me of going through the tourist gift shop of just about any and every Canadian town, or the duty free shop at the airport for that matter.

Finally a taste... and now the name is really making sense; Environment Canada should investigate this 'sap vampire' creature, it must be sucking the forests dry! Maple shacks around the country will be forced to declare bankruptcy and foreclose! Actually, the maple pairs well with the natural caramelly sweetness and kilned toastiness of the amber malts.

All that sweetness, however, adds up. And it becomes overwhelming pretty fast. The maple and its sweetness can, at times, resemble a concentrated distillate. I can't imagine ever getting through a six pack of the stuff (unless I started eating pancakes for breakfast every day for a month). Even a full bottle is a little much; a 5 ounce snifter seems perfect.

It's like Amber Brewing got its order mixed up with the IHOP down the street but instead of making a fuss they just decided to go with it. The use of maple syrup - such generous use of it anyhow - leads to mixed results: the beer is appreciably rich and flavourful, assuming you like maple, but, by the same token, is not something you could drink much of.

Sap Vampire Maple Lager sounds like something out of the X-Files and, indeed, it could have easily turned out that way with less capable brewers. The beer is decadently, impressively rich for something of it's kind - who'd of thought a lager would make the ideal digestif with dessert? That being said, the maple really need be scaled back for it to be anything else.

341ml bottle poured into pint glass may26 2010

A clear dark amber with a fair amount of carbonation feeding a small fast falling head that left no lace

S candied fruit, maple and just a little smoke

T a little cotton candy to go along with what I smell, rather sweet but nothing crazy

M a little sticky and not as thick as I expected but decent

D I just can't see myself drinking these back to back so from that point of view just average here

nothing offensive here but nothing that impressed my either, with so many great beers out there it may be a while until I get back to this one

Hazy dull orange with a finger of beige head. Head falls almost immediately to a thin cap.

Buttery maple and something a little strange, almost egg like. I don't necessarily think the beer is off, but the mix of sweetness and lager seem to present an off aroma. The buttery maple does bring waffles to mind, so it is a bit of a trade off.

Sweet maple, with a very natural tree-bark like flavour to balance the sweetness. Clean lager crispness cuts through most of the mouth. At once sweet, crisp and natural tasting, mission accomplished in my mind.

Not quite lager light, but not syrupy heavy in body, it lands somewhere in the middle. There is a certain mouth drying stickiness that leads to the next sip.

An intresting beer for sure, worth checking out if you like maple at all. I could see myself having a couple. If it wasn't for the slight strangeness to the aroma I could see myself having many.

A gem from Edmonton.

Cloudy orange appearance with traces of sediment on the head. Looks like traces of yeast - I think this is an unfiltered lager.

Rather sour, skunky smell. Smells almost like a sugary lager gone off. In a blind taste test, I'd be reluctant because the smell is so bitter.

Very smooth maple flavour, with decent hops and hits of butter, caramel and toffee. The taste is far superior to the scent - you can really feel the maple syrup presence. I could probably drink this for breakfast.

Nice carbonation, and smell aside this is a good session ale - especially with breakfast.

Bottle: Poured a medium copper color ale with a small foamy head with minimal retention and not much lacing. Aroma of maple is more dominant then I had expected and more enticing then I would have hoped for. Taste is dominated by the maple with some very small amount of residual sweetness which is surprising when you think of the amount of sugar in maple syrup. Very surprising and at least tasting of maple instead of so many other maple beer tasting nothing like maple - but then again I am still wondering if maple should be mixed with beer.