Merchant Ale House ESB

On tap at the brewery- Deep copper/amber with a frothy white cap. Nose is of muted earthy malts and wet hay, alongside some vague fruitiness and butterscotch. Flavour profile is weak sweet malts with a dank fruity component. Very weak. Something says this isn’t right. It’s sorta of muddled and doesn’t resemble much. It’s a sweet, dank, strange muddy concoction. Not offensive, but confused.

hoppy aroma, initial hop bite and flavour, and then notice much carbonationaand water. Citrus. White crown hhead with lace on medium grapefruit colour. Some creaminess in the mouthfeel.

Draught at the Merchant Ale House. Hazy golden-amber with a tight white head. Muted aroma, but what I could find seemed stale to me. Flavour was pretty standard for the style, but again, somewhat muted and stale. This staleness seemed to appear in a lot of their beers - maybe they just haven’t had a lot of turnover through the holidays? Whatever the case, there’s no excuse for serving stale product at a brewpub, and my ratings reflect that.

Draught. At Merchant Ale House, shared with jerc and GregClow. Poured hazy orange with a small white head. Aroma said "stale barn" to me - stale hops, weak malt, sourish grain mash. Taste similar, bump the hops up, a bit more sour and vegetal (not if a really bad way). Mouthfeel is thin and astringent - overall quite disappointing, but if fresh (and not so cold) this might have been decent.

Neat creamy head, amber brew below. Very light aroma (maybe because their taps were far to cold), just faint hop / malt aroma was detected. Smooth, creamy ale, more organic in feel than previously rated IPA. Vegetable, earthy. Average at best.