Tröegs HopBack Amber Ale

Deep copper in color and brilliant magnifying clarity with a dusty grey head. Hops forward aroma accented by grass, freesia, honey, hazelnut syrup, maple and caramelized nuts. Flavor delivers with formidable bitterness levels and malt sweetening. Tingly pine sprits blankets the palate and then steps aside for a toasty and caramel malt backbone that hits the session spot. Caramel and toffee play a prominent, nearly sugary, role. Sweet resin and moderate rye similarities help to impart a smooth sensation that’s void of astringency (thank Christ.) Medium bodied and remarkably well-balanced. Such a sweet, tasty treat all around and one of the best ambers I’ve ever had. Thanks for the bottle, Thaichile!

Rich amber color with a mostly diminishing beige colored head. Aroma is very hoppy in a piney way. This is an amber? Flavor is also grapefruit juice with a bit of caramel malt balance. Wonderful hop concontion. Probably not an amber, but thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless. Thanks Jason.

A solid brew. Pretty good balance with the hops and malt, although I’d prefer it a little more hoppy.

A great tasting beer which goes down nice and easy. I love to sit and drink 2 or 3 during one sitting.

Amber Ale??? Seems more like a an APA or IPA to me.... Copper colored pour with an off-white head. Caramel Aroma. Flavor is citrusy on the front and mildly hoppy on the finish. Nice.

12oz bottle. Clear amber body, long-lasting foamy white head. Mostly crystal-sweet aroma with light-peppery, grapefruit rind hops. Nice aroma but not that interesting. The flavor has dry toffee malt with balancing stemmy bitterness and light tart lime flavor hops. Dunno about this one. The stemmy, resinous lime hops don’t appeal to my tastes and I also dislike the toffee flavors. +1 on the hop belch however, this stuff sticks with you.

bottle-another thanks to hopdog for this fine amber ale. this beer poured orange with a small sudsy white head. this beer looks light for an amber ale thats for shure. could qualify for an esb, but we will get into the reasons why here later. aroma has nice earthy hops, toasted grains, acidic yeast, light pine and leafy hops. wow, flavors are pretty hoppy, moreso than the aroma suggests-pine, light grapefruit, and lightly citric (lemon) with some reasiny/sappy notes as well. nice medium body with a full feal. slightly over-carbonated, but it actually did ok for this beer. lots of malt sweetness to balance out the onslaught of leafy hops. nice clean yeast notes once again balance out the hops and put things all together. For me, this seems a little too light on the malt bill for an amber. not really any caramel sweetness. This is not a bad thing, but this beer definately would pass as an ESB in most cases due to its hops. . The resiny finish becomes more bitter over time. The full mouthfeal with all these piney/resiny hops almost makes this beer taste like a mini barleywine (think a watered down bigfoot). All in all, troegs is 3/3 and i have one of their beers left to sample.

I really dislike the smell, but the minute this one hits your tongue that changes. Very rich flavour: very hoppy, but the hops are more aromatic than bitter. A warm, mildly sweet flavour, quite a lot of maltiness. Very full tasting, balanced. This was a very pleasant beer; something about it is innovative; I wouldn’t say it really tastes like anything else I’ve tried. Also, oddly, my rather mundane meal (just heated up leftovers) tasted absolutely fantastic with this beer.