Ginga
Der Blokken Brewery

 

Poured into a Dogfish Head pint glass. Pours a reddish coppery amber with a thin off-white head that dissipated to a thick ring around the glass with slippery lacing. Mild aroma of bready and caramel malt, light toffee. Flavor is a slightly toasted biscuit malt, caramel, light grassy hops; finishes with lots of biscuit malt, slightly peppery with pleasant lingering hop bitterness. Medium bodied with hints of creaminess. Nice red ale color and character, very malt forward, but with good hop and dry herbal finish. Decent malty Irish red.

 

Thanks to OKComputer for this one. Poured from reviled 22oz bottle into 9oz Pilsener glass. Poured a clean, clear dark reddish-amber, about what's expected in the style. Poured very lively, over 2 inches of light tan head that had good retention and very light lacing.

The aroma was fairly typical, malty, slightly sweet, a bit grainy and with very light hops. The first flavors were the expected malt and grain, but then an odd sharpness hit the middle of the tongue. The beer was sticky in the middle, had a funky herbal aspect (although no spices or herbs were listed on the label, maybe the yeast?), and a bitter finish.

The body was the typical medium of the style, expect for the sticky and bitter finish. Drinkability suffered from the unpleasant sharpness and the funky herbal aspect. It took a fair bit of effort to finish the whole 22. Overall, a decent enough beer, but it's nothing special. Plus there was a lot of floaties in the last couple pours, despite no waring on the label of this being a bottle-conditioned beer. I'm giving the brewery the benefit of the doubt by assuming it's bottle-conditioned, and not a problem on the bottling line.