Our ESB will fall along the more traditional lines of the style with a nice balance of English malt character with spicy/earthy English hops. Although referred to as “a bitter,” ESBs aren’t necessarily that bitter. You can think of them as a quaffable English pale ale. I talked with brewer Matt Hecke about the team’s intentions behind the ESB and here’s what he had to say: “As of late a lot of our newly released beers have been more hop forward or extreme in their own ways. We wanted to show that a traditional style ale can hang with the best of our beers. We specifically chose to make an ESB because it isn’t very common, but still traditional in nature. It’s a good opportunity to showcase our knowledge of brewing past and present.”