Curly Tail Ale
St. Paul Brewing

Appearance: Brownish-amber, enormous head.

Smell: Toast, with a hint of tea/metallic bitterness.

Taste: Lots of toasted bread and some light roasted notes. Mild tea-like bitterness.

Drinkability: Very much a session beer, the growler is going very quickly.

Finally got around to picking up a growler at Flat Earth, and it's for one of their older beers that I'd never had before. Curly Tail Ale reminds me more of a brown ale than a pale ale with the roasty-toasty flavors, but is a very drinkable session beer.

I'm glad I could find this outside of the ballpark. I stopped by the brewery last week and they happened to have some in growlers. Being a big bitter fan, I was quite excited.

Pours a light brown-amber color. A bit darker than I'd expect for a bitter. It looked more ESBish. A bit more carbonated too. The aroma was nice with some slightly grassy, but floral hops. A pleasant toasted malt aroma followed. Slightly fruity aromas finish up in the background. The flavor was good, but not great. More of the floral hoppy bite w/ some grassiness. The malts were very nice with more of that toasty flavor, followed with a fruitiness. The only turn off was the flavor of the yeast. It gave the brew a strong "spiciness." The beer reminded me of Flat Earth's Belgian Pale ale. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not what I was looking for today. It was however pretty tasty, just a bit different than I'd expect. The mouthfeel was spot on, crisp and smooth.

Overall a reasonable beer. Not my first choice for a bitter. If I ever go to a St. Paul Saints game, I will definitely be drinking this beer. Outside of that, I will probably stick to Cygnus and Angry Planet. Still, it is nice to have another bitter out there.

Tasted from a 4 ounce sample glass at the brewery, this pours a clear amber color with little or no head. It smells bready. The taste is mildly of toasted bready malt with a nice hop bite at the finish. The mouthfeel is a bit thin, but this is quite the easy drinker. This beer is sold exclusively at a local minor league ballpark which can only sell 3.2 beer. A solid English bitter.

I tasted this one at a beer festival in Stillwater, MN. Is this really a 3.2 beer? This English bitter is true it's "session" self at 3.2 ABV but has a rich mouthfeel that amazed me. It poured copper brown with a tan head and a malty nose up front. It gave away some nice English malty flavor of bread with a hint of grass and a touch of chocolate. Then comes that splash of bitter, but not overly so, from what I assume are some good English hops. It needs to be a touch more sweet in the malt profile for it to really shine, but wow, was this drinkable. The Saints are lucky to have this one on tap.