ESB
Redfish New Orleans Brewhouse

This beer is pretty much on par with most others that I had during GABF weekend '08. The malt character is well attenuated, sweet-biscuity, and quite dry. Hops are moderately fueled and balance the beer well. The hop variety, however, was more citrus in nature rather than classic, pungent, flowery English types. The beer was lightly carbonated but faltered a bit in the retention. A nice beer that's not quite true to style, but enjoyable at any rate.

The beer pours an amber color with an offwhite head that slowly fades to lacing. The aroma is good. It has a typical red ale feel, pale and crystal malts, but with a nice bitter hop edge to it. The taste is good as well. It has a smooth, yet dry and bitter flavor that is balanced well with pale and crystal malts. It goes down easy. The mouthfeel is fine. It is a low/medium bodied beer with adequate carbonation. This is a good ESB. It not incredibly malty, but it adds enough character to balance out the hop presence which is quite nice.

I find it rather funny that the official name of this beer (at least when I had it on-tap) was 'Old School ESB'. That to me implies some sort of respect for tradition for beer paradigm. I was hoping to find something in line with Young's or Fuller's ESB.

This beer was definetely the American style of ESB, which is sort of tainted. To me, the proper ESB is a liquid biscuit with a large enough alcohol and hop profile to keep everything tied to reality while still remaining rather 'poofy'.

This beer was all about kicking the malt/biscuit thing to the side and going for carmelized hops. It had the cheap, plastic-y taste of the Red but with a late-hop-addition kick that made things better than that beer.

Still, come on now. Old School should at least be a little more like the ESB of old.

Appearnce: This ESB pours a clear amber color. As with all of the drafts I had at Redfish, there was no head on the beer.
Aroma: I could detect a slightly hoppy nose, but nothing outstanding.
Flavor: This brew was slightly malty up front, with a slightly malty finish. The mouthfeel was light/medium.
This is a decent session beer.