Another Ale
Jasper Murdock’s Alehouse, Dining Room & Microbrewery (The Norwich Inn)

 

This beer is named "Another Ale" with a very undescriptive description on the menu. Its blatantly obvious that the beer was a mistake of some sort during production, and they decided to sell it anyways. This is very poor form, even for a small brew-pub who can't afford to lose money. The fact alone that they couldn't match it to SOME sort of style shows a great lacking in responsibility from the producers.

Not knowing what to expect, I was sorely disappointed when first tasting the beer. It had a no hop aroma/character, decent head retention, acidic bite in taste, and was generally unremarkable. It tasted like perhaps their Red-ale had gone wrong during production (lack of crystal/dark grains) and they'd pushed it through. If you would like to try a one-off beer, I'd say get there before summer '09 is over and try this beer, but don't expect too much.

Off the tap at the Norwich Inn this American Amber ale was a light copper color with a finger of off-white head. The retention was very good and the lacing was good too. The aroma smelled of toasted malt, the Boadicea hops that were used which added an herbal element and caramel malt. The flavors were rather punchy, a rather macro-grain-like flavor (adjuncts?) along with pale malt and the herbal hops. The alcohol was not very well concealed but did not throw it off balance much either. The finish was bitter and I found it generally acidic. The mouthfeel was watery, the carbonation soft and the body medium/light. Unfortunately, the name really should have been "Just Another Ale..."