Lightringer ESB
Blue Stallion Brewing Co.

After hitting home runs with their lagers, the Blue Stallion brewers tease the tastebuds with ale flavors, taking on the boldly balanced taste of English extra special bitter.

Lightringer pours a hazy copper with amber margins. Its creamy and subdued head begins to take on those cask-like aspirations early on. Its bready-sweet taste is juicy with biscuit, caramel and angel food cake. Fruity aromas swirl in the nose with honeysuckle, apricot and orange.

As the flavors unfold, notions of honey biscuit and fruit roll ups come to mind while the sweetness slathers the palate with more heft than amber or pale ale. Its rich malt profile is rounded by those soft esters and balanced with the herbal notes of British noble hops- mildly grassy, tea-like, and broadly bittered with woodsy flavors, the finish carries a mild floral pattern.

The the malt slowly wavering and the bitterness growing at the same rate, the taste is slow to develop, but the medium-bodied beer trends drying and hoppy, deep into a mineral-rich but crisp, ironside finish.

Honey malt sweetness and floral notes form the initial, subtle a aroma. Biscuit malt creeps in late.

Flavor reveals a minerally character throughout, along with an underlying bitterness and biscuit malt backbone. The finish is slightly fruit estery and perfumey into the aftertaste.

If the minerally/chlorine character were gone, this would be much more approachable. Hope they keep working on this one. A change in yeast could provide more character esters ala fullers.