Dos Equis XX Ambar

Brewed by FEMSA - Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma (Heineken)
Style: American Dark Lager
Monterrey/Veracruz-Llave, Mexico

Serve in Dimpled mug, Lager glass, Shaker

UPDATED: JUN 25, 2009 Pours nice, amber color light head, not bad. Good brew to have with bar food or Mexican.

Enjoyed via 12oz bottle. Pours a medium to strong gold, but certainly not "dark." Nose has little in the way of complexity; perhaps just a touch of malt character. Light and fizzy across the palate, with some malt character (more than the big three industrials) but nothing to write home about. Finishes as it began...with little to nothing. While this is ultimately a relatively boring and lifeless style, this is a disappointment of a beer, and is better avoided. One is better off just getting a diet coke, instead.

Clear brown pour with frothy, flow to dissipate white head. Aroma is grain, malt and metal with a hint of caramel sweetness. Flavor is sweet, almost fruity malt with little hop backbone and a bit or grain. Palate is crisp and refreshing, though horribly thin. Nothing too special here.

Pour is a dark red/copper. Mild head that seems to lace well. Smells a bit like caramel/toffee, with a mild fruit background. Taste is quite uneventful. Rather watery with a slight note of caramel...Whatever.

Draught to complement the lunch buffet at a nearby Mexican restaurant. Pours light copper with whitish head. The aroma is light caramel, corn, and a hint of citrus. The flavor is the same; mild corn and caramel. It’s actually a little better with the lime in it. Makes it a little less one dimensional. Nothing special, but I guess it gets the job done.

32 oz draft at most Mexican restaurants. Poured a clear amber color with a thin tan head. The aroma was mainly grain, with earthy notes. The flavor was malty. This is one of my favorite beers to have when dining out.

I was just glad to get a Mexican beer that didn’t come in a clear bottle and smelling of roadkill (Corona, I’m looking in your direction). Nice colour and surprising, malty aroma, but I can’t exactly see Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach sipping the stuff between gunfights. It’s just a little too light for that. I’m still hoping to find a beer that really tastes of Mexico, it’\s history, its people, its traditions, but I’m beginning go get the feeling the answer isn’t in my beloved, European fizzy drink, but in the mysterious and misunderstood agave plant. This watery stuff might as well be from the States.

Copper colored pour into off white foamy had that rapidly dissipates into light ring of lacing around the glass. Active carbonated bubbles rise from the bottom of the glass into a swirl of foam in the center of the glass. Aroma of malty corn chips with hint of bitter hops. Initial flavor of malty corn tortillas that instantly fades into a watery sweet malty finish. This one is better from a tap and would also take the amber over the pale, but only if they aren’t serving margaritas. When dining out and getting the amber on tap, the salt and lime don’t do much for me.