Tröegs HopBack Amber Ale

Couldn’t smell much out of the bottle but was pretty balanced, bready, nice dry hops. Bready,creamy, buttery taste with a nice hoppy,grapefruityandpine finish. Good stuff.

Pours amber with a thin white head. Taste is typical of an amber ale. Nothing special.

This beer falls into that very broad category in American craft brewing known as "Amber Ale." Troegs HopBack is brewed with pilsner and Munich malts, and is hopped with both Liberty and Nugget hop varieties. It is then dry hopped, which means the brew is strained through the Hop Back or hop strainer, which is packed with whole flower Nugget hops. This gives the beer a very vibrant hop aroma, as well as adding even more hop flavors to the Liberty and Nuggets that are used in the boil. Unlike many one dimensional hop blasts, this beer has a firm, smooth, malty back bone to match up to that big hop character. HopBack Amber Ale pours to a beautiful, bright, deep amber color with a thick and creamy white head, and a moderate amount of carbonation. The nose is very fragrant with spicy and citric aromas, as well as some crisp, toasty malt character, with touches of estery ripe fruit. The palate is very firm, with lots of crisp, toasty malt flavor, slightly nutty malt flavor, under tones of estery fruit, and citric hop flavor. HopBack Amber Ale finishes with more malt and fruit up front, then ends with a very dry, zesty hop bite that lingers on the tongue. This is an outstanding amber ale that would match very well with a number of dishes due to the fact that it has both great malt and hop character. It comes in at 5.6% abv, allowing the drinker to enjoy a few, and a very respectable 55 IBU(bitterness units). That is plenty of hop bitterness, and it will please a hard core hop head, but is not so abusively hoppy that it could not be enjoyed by a novice to the style.

Good luxurious color for a hoppy brew. Nicely built head too for a bottle pour. A bit of a ruby sparkling medium body for the style. Obvious hops on the nose with a petal flower aroma that’s strong, but doesn’t overpower. Fine blend of some sweet toffee malt with the hop presence. You know what? Actually better than expected.

There is actually a substance known as amber. It’s not just what you should name your daughter if you want her to grow up to be a stripper, it’s also some kind of petrified tree sap, or so I was led to believe by the movie Jurassic Park. Anyway, this is a deep reddish brown, while amber the substance (and your future porn star daughter) are more on the yellow side. Anyway, this beer is definitely extremely hoppy, as advertised. Almoset enough malty flavor to offset the nearly ridiculous hop characteristics, I’ll be tasting these hops in burps I let out 3 days from now.

Pours a nice amber color with a small off-white head that fades quickly. Aroma is of hops. Flavor has a touch of caramel that gives way to the bitter of the hops.

ambers the name... nicely hopped almost an IPA in hoppy delisciousness- the winner of 8 in a troegs/weyerbacher new years eve sampling. thanks to claff for keeping score!

I personally think of Hopback as more of an IPA than an Amber. Big flavour and big IBU.