Elysian The Wise ESB

Brewed by Elysian Brewing Co.
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Seattle, Washington USA

On Tap: Grey Lodge Pub: Very nice combination of bittering and malt flavors. Very smooth drinking and highly enjoyable. Late hop kick in the finish that I found rather pleasant.

Deeply broad and beautiful orangey color with a medium/full stack of egg shell hued soft, creamy foam. Keeps a great cap of about a 1/4 inch for the entire duration of the session. Patchy and broken sheets of lacing coat the glass well. An excellent looking glass to drool over. Wiff time...Aroma is quite grassy and feathered in herbalness with a slight toasted malt wiggle underneath. Perhaps a little light at first but somehow gains more waft as it sits. Taste is pretty solid here for an ESB. Subtle layers of toasted malts and grains & grassy, herbal, leafy, hops, create a nice balance and texture for a delicate ride of ESB styled fun. Starts fine and smoothly textured with a bit of sweet bready grainyness mixing quite well with a broad grassy hop tone. Toastyness ensues towards the midranges as a woody hop adds some cardboard pulp and leafyness. It rounds off with a floating finish of frothy textured toasted grainy, grassy bitterness and wood pine. Kinda ends a bit too soon, but fits the style. It does however have a very light kickback of flavors very late after it grows on ya. Feel is quite nice with a standard medium, smooth body; no real rough areas other than a tad of scarring on the palate from its toasted grainyness and fluffyish texture of hoppy leafyness. After determining most of its character from sip after sip, there seems to be just a bit more subtlety adding to it. A very light citric lemon/orange peel spritz does sqeeze into some of the hoppy return late into its kickbacked finish. For an ESB this was one hell of a very well crafted beer in my book. The subltety took its toll on me along with its very nice body and drinkability. Overall, a strikingly fine beer.

Draft @ the Grey Lodge Pub, somehow there was a name change from Portland to Philadelphia. The G-Lodge is calling it "Elysian the Wise EBA". No big deal only one letter off. This could easily pass as a IPA with all the C-hops used in the brew. Some spice in the flavor but an overall the brewer blended the sweet caramel malt of an ESB with the bitterness the West Coast hop heads long for in a beer. I’m just surprised this can be classified as an ESB and not an IPA or APA.

Killer, much better on draft in my opinion than out of the bottle, much more tame in the bottle. Fresh and lively on draft, this one has a bit of a zing, caramel malty flavors with some nice bittering hops, a slight bit of mineral and earthiness, but the fragrance is wonderful everytime you take a sip.

(Bottle) Pours a lightly cloudy amber body with a small beige head. Aroma of bread, pine, grapefruit, and caramel. Flavor of taosted malt, hops, and caramel. Somewhat bitter finish.

22oz bottle. Poured a darker and hazy amber color with an averaged sized off white head. Some small floaters. Aromas of caramel, bread, with some hop presence (pine). Tastes of stronger pine, grapefruit, roasted malts and lighter caramel. Lacing left on the glass. Another ESB that reminded me more of an IPA (but that’s fine in my book).

I hate typing in a rating after Clark...Pour is deep copper amber with a huge dense tan head...smell is hoppy with hints of pine, as well as bready sweet...taste is slightly sweet up front with that bread dough character coming through turning bitter, almost IPA bitter...not ESB bitter, but flavor wise this is a very malty beer...

Draught Pint at Redbones on 11/17/05 with OldGrowth. On the border between transparent and transluscent, this amber to cherry-red and beige colored beer invites a beige colored head to dinner and the two chat in to the evening (alternatively, the head is well-retained). Spotty lacing evident on the glass. Very respectable appearance for a pressurized, low gravity draught. Aroma has a touch of earth to it, lightly musty notes arise as well, and then a hint of cherries, dry peaches and finally soft caramel. Only a smattering of orange-peel-like citrus notes are apparent at first, but after warming, evolve to a more broad orange and light grapefruit variety. Flavor combines medium-dry caramel with light oranges and a touch of minimally sour, munich-like grains. Supportive malting mixed with low carbonation produces a lightly creamy texture. Strong dryness on the finish suggestive of dusty yeast, dry grains and light hop bitterness. Fresh, and with more yeast character than your average American ESB. Lightly sweet toffee lingers on the aftertaste.