Schloss Eggenberg MacQueens Nessie (7.3%)

Bottle. Creamy white good head. Dark yellow colour. Mild aroma, Good malty taste average finish where you can sense the whisky.

Draught. Slightly hoppy aroma. Golden colour, small white head. Malty flavour, some bonbon. Sweet bitterness.

11.2 oz capped bottle: pours a clear, shinning amber with a sticky white head that clings to the glass in an elegant lace pattern. Oats and mashed wheat, alcoholic aroma with background players of soaked malted barley and rotten hay. Amazing in its aromatic similarities to the malting room floors of the whiskey distilleries I toured in Scotland…the mouth feel is actually quite full; coating the mouth and filling every crevasse, strangely though it is also thin and water, lacking any real carbonation. Flavours are surprisingly mild, comprising sweet, gooey malts, toasted caramel and light toffee. The finish leaves a metallic, alcohol twang on the tongue…mostly unremarkable.

It’s rather odd that MacQueen’s Nessie isn’t from Scotland. It’s also odd that it calls itself a red ale but it doesn’t seem to be an ale, let alone red. I find it still odder though that this is classified as a smoke beer despite having no discernible smoke character. Man, this beer is a blast and a half already!

Anyway--this is a golden bronze brew that lacks much of a head. Grass, seaweed and some toasty malt in th nose. Somewhat sweet w/ notes of hay and dusty basement. Full bodied and lacking carbonation. I tend to rather like Eggenberg so this is something of a disappointment.

Bottle. Reddish with no head at all. Smells: smokiness, bitter malts, and a bit of an apple aroma. Taste... ick, this is awful. Bittery, coppery, dirty, and gross. Don’t like this one at all... actually had to pour it out.

This beer is more about malt than it is smoke. It pours a clear amber body with a frothy white head that does some great lacing. The aroma is a sweet, worty malt scent (which I enjoy)with a bit of juicy apple and a faint trace of smoke. It’s smooth to drink, fairly bereft of carbonation. The taste is quite malty with a bit of herbal hop bitterness. The fruit is gone, but the smokiness exerts itself, although weakly compared to German rauchbiers. There’s no hint of the 7.3% abv throughout. It finishes on a sticky sweet note with a stronger hop bitterness and maybe, just maybe a touch of smoke.

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Smoke? mmm, maybe a little bit. It smelled mostly sweet and malty to me. Color was deep red, tons of floaties, very short head, no lacing. Taste was on the verge of syrupy sweet (a little too close to "cloying" for me), but it did have a mostly dry finish, and yeah, maybe some hints of smoked bacon. Not all that impressed with this one.

Pours amber with a thick but light head. Aromatic hops and malt prominant on the nose but not much complexity. Mouth is a bit sweet and quite malty. Not a lot of complexity. Body is medium-full and a bit syrupy. Some tannins-feel at the end witha lingering malt taste.