Oaklore
Evans Brewing Co.

 

A: The beer is brown when viewed from afar; when held up to a light it is clear dark reddish brown in color with a light amount of visible carbonation. It poured with a quarter finger high off white head that left a wide collar around the edge of the glass.
S: Light aromas of nutty malts and oaky vanilla are present in the nose.
T: The taste has light to moderate flavors of amber and nutty malts with notes of oak. A light amount of bitterness is perceptible.
M: It feels a bit more than light-bodied on the palate with a moderate amount of carbonation.
O: This beer isn’t as nutty compared to other beers in the style and is also lighter in body.

Serving type: can

 

Picked this up at my local grocery store in N. California.

The brewery describes this beer as a brown ale has a nutty caramel flavor with a sweet hint of vanilla. I would describe it as sour with a bacterial infection. Two small sips and then I poured it down the drain.

Horrible. Waste of money. Avoid.

Brownish-amber body; decent head; soft and dense although a bit thin. Fruity, malty aroma; honey and over-ripe fruit. Sour flavor with little brown ale qualities. Medium body; thin and watery; rather tart.

The brewery's web site description claims attributes of "caramel and nutty body". Unfortunately, these qualities are MIA. What one does get is a slightly sour, weak and thin dark colored beer. Makes one wonder what the brewery is implying with its descriptor of "Brewed to lumberjack standards"...

 

1 Pt 6 fl oz bottle from the refrigerated section of Ralph's, Studio City, CA. Only $3.99 for such a large bottle should have been my first warning, but I ignored my instincts and my previous experience with Evans (chocolate porter, another awful beer). Poured out very foamy, then settled quickly into a deep brown void. Smells fair, hints of oak and chocolate, definitely the best part of the beer. Tasted very sharp, as if it had been steeped with lemon rinds. Very lively, grassy, herbal/lemon tea taste that just doesn't make sense to me. This is a brown ale that lost its way and became a pseudo black IPA. Extremely unfortunate taste that does not leave the tongue. Finally, provided a nice little stomach ache, the kind I get when I drink artificially-flavored soft drinks. Is this an adjunct?? Sneaky bastards at Evans serving me up a shitty malt liquor and calling it a BROWN ALE. Good joke!

Bottom line: Reminds me of stale beer, except I had opened it five minutes prior to tasting it. Avoid, avid, avoid.

funky, oak + chocolate

 

 

Looked like a brown ale but it fooled me. This is there very first time I poured a beer down the drain. Highly acidic. Not drinkable

 

Purchased at BevMo in a 22oz bottle, poured into a Guinness pint glass.

Decent head on pour, flattens out shortly with scarce lacing.

I can't quite work out the aroma, it's just... weird.

There's a lemony acidic taste that just doesn't make sense for a brown ale. It's not terrible, but just does not fit for the style.

I'm baffled by this offering - not planning to rush towards it again.

Bottle from Foothills Discount Liquor. Smooth and mild. Light aroma on top of brown body with soft creamy head. Taste is sweet, then nutty, overall nice texture. Mild bitterness from the roast grains lingers, Nice and smooth, but nothing special.

I bought a big bottle of "Oaklore Brown Ale" by Evans Brewing Co (Irivine, CA) tonight at Vons in Westminster (Orange County, California). On taking it home and removing the cap, it make only a slight "hs" sound; not much pressure. On pouring it into a glass, it immediately foamed violently with a very heavy super-fine-bubbled tan head, about 3 inches of suds on top of 1 inch of beer. (Weird.) The color was so dark brown as to look black. No real aroma in the glass at all. On taking a sip, the beer was highly acidic and highly lemony, like lemonade but without the sweetness. The strong lemon flavors were mixed in with the typical roasted-malt flavors you'd expect from a porter. Much like a mix of strong lemonade and a good porter. Very bizarre, totally like any brown ale I've ever tasted, and very, VERY unlike the two existing reviews I see for this beer on BeerAdvocate dot com.

Never the less, not too bad! The porter flavors and lemon flavors make an interesting combo! Didn't go well with lasagna, though. Would likely have gone well with bland or oily foods (meat? cheese?) to offset the acidity.

Something tells me, though, that this is not what this beer is supposed to taste like. I'm thinking this beer was either damaged (too old? leaky? contaminated?) or mis-labeled; brown ale isn't supposed to be highly acidic.

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a very dark mahogany brown, nearly opaque in the glass with a half finger khaki head with good retention and lacing. Aroma of lightly toasted malt, nuts, rye bread, Postem. Flavor is toasted malt, grain husks, nuts and mild cocoa, hints of wood. Finishes with residual toasted malt, astringent wood and hop bitterness. Pleasant medium body with light creaminess. The base brown ale is good, with rich malt and hints of nuts and cocoa, but the finish is rather stark, astringently woody without any oaky vanilla flavors that make oaked ales so enjoyable. A good brown ale, but with a bit of a miss on the oak addition. Good but unbalanced.

 

 

Pours a fairly thin head on a brown body.
The aroma is nuts and roasted malt.
The taste is roasted malt, a touch of bitterness, and some nuts.
The texture is fairly crisp.
It's an alright ale.