Lakefront Organic ESB

Brewed by Lakefront Brewery
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

Serve in English pint

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Slight hint of nuts. Spicy palate with a hint of fruit. Not really anything like most ESB’s. Very drinkable. Does Lakefront make a bad beer?

The bottle hadn’t died quite as completely as the other Lakefronts I’ve tried, but as ESBs go this was unimpressive.

Amber color with a quickly diminishing head. Light aroma of perfumy hops. Mild toffee and bread flavors. Fairly subdude hops bitterness. Borders on being bland.

My first bottle of this was bad. Upon retaste, the beer is golden with a lame head. That’s where the disappointment ends. Crisp and bitter with an unusual taste for an ESB. Very pleasant and drinkable!

UPDATED: NOV 19, 2011 Update November 18, 2011: I finally got a bottle of this that hadn’t "turned"...now I’m fairly impressed with this brew. I experienced a moderate body with a nice balance between sweet maltiness and bitter hoppiness. Very drinkable. I’ll be buying more of this. Well, another bottle didn’t change my original rating. Same weird medicinal taste as the first one I tried. Hate to admit it, but I didn’t even finish the whole bottle. ’Born on’ date was the 4th week of June, shouldn’t have become funky that quickly. ORIGINAL REVIEW: Darn it. I sure hope the sample I’m drinking right now is simply a bad bottle. It tastes like some kind of fizzy medicine. There’s an aftertaste that I can’t quite identify; it’s almost like hydrogen peroxide or something. Earlier today, I stopped by my usual beer outlet to pick up a six of a favorite brew, but when I saw the Lakefront beer, I decided I’d try something different. Well, this is different alright...not sure if it’s even beer...(?)

Attractive, creamy foam. Crystal clear amber liquid. Aroma of subtle hops, nuts, herbal whiffs, honeyed malts, and lemon. Medium bodied; soft and airy palate. Hop/malt balance well executed with neither wanting to dominate. Along comes a Chlorine flavor in time to spoil this beers’ potential. Finishes blandly and phenolic, yet astringently. Next.

bright corn husk yellow, filtered clean and showy with a creamy white head. my bottle came into this life (according to the label) the 2nd week of april. i point this out because i got a whiff of soap that a second fresh glass couldn’t cure. i hate to badmouth a beer that trumpets an agricultural system that i endorse (organic), but it doesn’t matter how they make it if it ain’t any good, it could be made on mars by trained goats for all i care. this has a curious nose that could be interpreted as damp newspaper (in addition to the hand soap) . flavor however rallys somewhat to the level of merely inoffensive, very dry and tart; i’m wishing i had chilled it more. watery by glasses end and obviously unsatisfying. i had to go have a barleywine afterwards. in fairness, i’ll assume i got a bad bottle (in spite of the nice appearance) and try it again.

Clear gold. Frothy big bubbled white head. Light carbonation. Takes all of the flexing ability of my nostrils to detect any aroma. Light traces of toasted malt and some grass. Thinnish, watery and devoid of any depth of malt flavor. Does have a very slight toasty aspect and grassy flavor that emerges but this tastes like carbonated water. What a joke. Finishes fuzzy with a slight noticeable toastedness. Completely forgettable.

Lakefront Brewery - one of my favorate breweries that is a block or two away from my house. Unfortunatly, this is there worst beer I had. Mind you, this is like saying ’The worst car model Porche makes’. If I had to drink it all day, I would not complain in the least.

True to form--quicly diminishing head over a reddish body. Slightly bready malt flavors dominate, with some toffeeish and buttery notes. The hops aren’t really ’pronounced,’ they’re just kind of their to make things a bit more bitter, as one would expect of an ESB. I don’t know what ESBs others have been drinking, but this seems to fit the profile I’ve come to expect from English brewers like Gales and Fullers.