Special Amber Ale
Atlantic Brewing Company - Town Hill / Mainely Meat BBQ

 

A 22 ounce bomber bottle. Limited bottling - 2008 vintage. Poured into a nonic pint glass. The ale appears a hazed rich apricot color with about two fingers of fluffy bone white foam. Nose and flavor are nice and malty, sweet caramel, medium toasted bread, earthy grassy hops, tree fruits such as pears. A notch better than medium in body with ample carbonation for the style. Worth trying if you see it around.

2008 Vintage

Appearance: hazy/cloudy, 1/4 inch head, medium carbonation, plum-amber

Smell: caramel, hops, and malt

Taste: caramel dominates, with malt, sugar cane, and a brief taste of hops at the beginning.

Mouthfeel: bitter first taste, semi-smooth, medium bodied, with a super sweet end.

Drinkability: If you are into sweeter ambers, this is your beer. I like them and could drink this a bunch. This is a beer to relax with and the craftmanship shows.

2008 Vintage.

Appearance: Pours a hazy, amber body with a thin, wispy, white head.

Smell: Sweet-smelling, malt-driven aroma of caramel squares with accompanying fruit notes.

Taste: Chewy caramel maltiness along with tastes of honey candy and sugar-crusted apricots and pears. There's never much of a showing of hops or bitterness and they struggle to provide balance. Finishes as sweet and fruity as it began.

Mouthfeel: Medium-plus body. Medium carbonation.

Drinkability: A fine, malt-forward amber ale. So yeah, it's worth a try.

From a 22oz bottle 2008 Edition- Pours a somewhat cloudy orange/red color with small quickly dissipating head. Below average carbonation. Smells super sweet with an excellent balance between the hops and malt. First sip is very mild but extremely tasty. Great and welcomed bitter finish. Medium light bodied. A very nice amber.

2008 vintage 22 0z bomber poured into my pint glass produced a good two fingers worth of head that turned to a thick lace.
The body of the brew was a great amber color.

The aromas of hops were the first thing to hit me. Followed by a nice biscuits and caramel malts smell

Flavors are toward the sweet side caramel malt is upfront but there is a slight bitter finish. Really more of a barley wine feel to this brew. A medium mouthfeel and a good amount of carbonation

The drinkability was good on this but the bomber was enough for one sitting. A little sweet for me.

Pours from the 22 oz. bomber to a reddish orange, with thick off-white head that lingers well into the glass and leaves good lacing. Nose is malty sweet with a hint of hoppiness. Mouthfeel was of this full-bodied beeer was complex, almost bittersweet, as the malt and hops collided. Flavor was more of the same, and this all led to a long, pleasant finish.

The unique thing I noticed about this beer was that unlike many qualitly beers that taste better as they warm, this was actually better served cooler (not ice cold). Still one of the more enjoyable ambers I've had.

2007 Release - Bottle 969

Upon reading about the sale of Bar Harbor Brewing, I figured it was time to pull one out of the cellar to see how it was doing, and perhaps a review. So he it goes...

Poured into a Sam "Boston Lager" glass. 1st pour was sparklingly clear with a 3 cm head. This is a very nice amber with a vibant red center. This smelled sweet and of alcohol. Rich aroma with loads of caramel and maybe some apple/pear? As this has aged for about six months the hops have faded quite a bit, not that I remember there being much to begin with. The slight hop twinge is gone. In its place is straight up silky malts. I'd say it is very reminiscent of an old ale at this point. Very nice.

Even at this young age, I could see huge potential to cellar this one. I'm saddened to think that a multi year vertical of this may never be possible. I would like applaud Tod Foster for an outstanding effort. I believe with time this could have rivaled the great Cadillac.

22oz. bottle, number 294 - thanks to Ira

Pours a clear amber color with a thick, light tan head that maintains. Decent lacing on the glass.

Aroma is caramel malty with a light fruitiness. A nice compliment of herbal hops rounds it out.

Caramel malty and rather sweet upfront with light fruity tones. Slight bitterness midway along with a pleasant herbal hop taste. Finishes malty sweet.

Medium-full body, highly carbonated.

Overall, a tasty oversized amber ale that's easy to drink. Always nice when someone takes an amber beyond the norm. I think it could stand to be a little less sweet and have a touch more hop profile, but it's certainly recommended as-is.

Got this one from number1bum in a face to face trade at good ol' Middle Ages, thanks buddy.

22 oz. bomber poured into a nonic.

Pours a (yup, you guessed it) glowing amber hue with a full one finger light tan colored head that dies down to a thin layer. Stickiness is about average. Smell is big caramel malts with a hint of floral hops. Some spices seem to emerge as well, nutmeg mostly. Taste begins with a nice pine hop tingle which is quickly taken over by the huge caramel malt. Sweet all around with flavors of honey and vanilla. Very clean finish Mouthfeel is a good medium body with a moderate amount of carbonation. So silky smooth on the tongue. To me, after the first pint the sweetness is a bit much so the drinkability suffers a bit. Not a bad beer by any means, glad I had the opportunity to try. Thanks again Josh.

a friend lugged this bomber back from maine for me along with some sebago stuff and the holy grail of stouts. this seemed like the 'extra' in the batch, so it took me a week or two to get around to sampling it.

yellow-edged dark copper, full of pep and fizz. the beer is topped by a clean, silky, and thin head of even opacity. the beer leaves a skinny mask of lacing uniformly along the glass' wall. the aroma of the beer reminds me alot of the honey sweetness found in traditional maibocks. reading the last reviewer's notes (supposed to be barleywinish?) i am rather confused.. but it sure smells good. alongside the honey, i get pumpkin pie and a bit of cinnamon. some almond paste lingers too. rather sweet and rich scent.

so smooth. like drinking satin. the amber style is quite ambiguous, so i don't mind the confusion here. it's much bigger than the usual amber, and i get both heft in the mouthfeel and a boozy warmth in the stomach without heat on the tongue. the creaminess of the beer almost masks the flavor.. although there is a pronounced noble bitterness in the finish along with some raisin puree. i'll stick with the sweetness of a big german lager or bock to define this beer, with the counterpoint of the aforementioned bittering hops. hard beer to wrap my head around, but i know i like it. i would highly recommend seeking this bottle out and enjoying one or two. this is a big beer that tastes good and doesn't weigh the consumer down in the dog day heat of late summer.

Picked up a few bottles of this while visiting Bar Harbor on vacation. During the daily tasting the brewer's wife said that this year's recipe is slightly different than last year's. She described it as not quite a barleywine but in that same league. This was brewed in December and is a bottle conditioned brew. She said last year's version, which is now a year and a half old, is now very enjoyable and she expects this year's to round into shape with some age as well. As such, I'm going to try one now, another in 6 months or so, and a third in a year to see how it's progressed. Should be fun.

First bottle 8/3, #575. Pours a nice, rich amber color with a full finger and a half or more of buttercream colored head. There's quite a layer of yeast cake on the bottom of the bottle, a little bit of which I poured in on the 2nd glass. Good clarity, a little less so on the 2nd glass from the yeast. Good head retention and a nice thin lace remains, with just a bit of stick.

Smell is primarily sweet with some caramel malts for the most part. Also some floral and fruity hops, but the smell overall is somewhat weak.

Taste is predominantly sweet from start to finish. It's a very honey-like sweetness, which mixes with some caramel malt, as well. Not much hop flavor, a bit of fruitiness is about it, but there is some bitterness that balances out all that sweetness toward the finish. The sweetness tiptoes its way toward being cloying, but never quite approaches it enough to be bothersome. It never quite reaches the level of being too sweet to affect the drinkability, and overall it's really tasty, albeit a bit of a sipper.

An enjoyable brew for sure. I look forward to trying it again with some more age on it.

Served from bottle into standard pint glass.

Pours a hazy, medium dark copper color. Huge beige head, excellent retention, decent lace.

Aroma is bready & malty sweet, with toasted malts, caramel, brown sugar & some light hops. Aroma takes on more character as it warms.

Flavor is sweet, malty. Toasted malt dominates and stays with you throughout, with only a touch of hops coming in at the end to balance things out. Toasted malt character keeps up into the aftertaste.

Medium-full body, moderate carbonation. Somewhat chewy, and syrupy. Seems more towards a really light barley wine, or strong ale more than a simple amber. Quite good, but I'm not where it fits as far as style goes. Drinkability is good, but it's somewhat filling so maybe not a session candidate.

Quaffed from a 22oz bottle, limited edition #354.

Drained this one into my Portsmouth Imperial Pint glass, displaying itself in a lovely clear amber/auburn color. Really beauteous! Has steady carbo rising within, not plentiful, yet still steady. Head is creamy and light tan, lasting well while leaving nice stick in the glass. (Bottle was residued, which I swirled in near the finish. Clouded things up, yet did nothing to detract from a tasty brew). Nose kicks off with some toasty malt, caramel and hints of brown sugar, though it was a mild aroma overall. Body is a solid medium, and fairly smooth. Quite acceptable mouthfeel.

Caramel malt lays a nice flavor foundation, though it has a sharp edge to it. The light sweetness has good staying power, though hops are light, they are a noticeable presence. They seem to have a smidge of spiciness to them, too. Very tasty, and the flavors linger well. Would be a solid session bier, if made in larger numbers. Thnx to bennybrew for this solid bier from Maine.

Prosit!!

overall: 4
appearance: 4.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | mouthfeel: 4 | drinkability: 4

943

This is a limited edition beer, that was brewed once by Bar Harbor, though while visiting the brewery in August, we were told that the brewer enjoyed it so much, that they're almost certain he'll make another batch of it in the future.

We purchased bottles No. 298 and 845. I'm not certain how many bottles were produced, but we were told those were the last two they had -- provided the brewer didn't stash a few six packs away from where.

In any respect, it is a very good Amber beer. It is unfiltered and pours with a cloudy, dark copper/amber color. The aroma has a sweet smell to it, and the taste mirrors the aroma bringing out sweet malty flavors of caramel and some faint floral flavors.

It carries a nice, foamy head throughout the beer; surprisingly lasting until the last few sips. The smoothness and the sweet maltiness seem to give the beer a little more heft than most beers of this style.

In all, it is an excellent beer and while the folks at Bar Harbor Brewery couldn't have been nicer or more proud of their work, I actually hope they were putting me on and that our bottles didn't constitute the last of the batch. I hope some other people have/had an opportunity to sample this beer this summer.

Woohoo, guess who was nice enough to present us with bottle # 349 of this limited edition brew (2006). You have to guess! David and I shared this bomber this evening. After pouring, my first thought was: peaches, as the 1 inch head had a peachy glow to it. Aroma was low and fruity (think peaches again). Pretty clear when first poured, but after re-filling our glasses, the beer became cloudier and more yeasty in the aroma. Deep tan in color. Abundant and vigorous carbonation. I am picking up some sweet malt, some fruity notes (peaches, 'member?), and on my second pour, yeasty notes. Interesting, seems stonger in abv than first thought.