Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

Jamey gave me a couple of bottles of homebrew when I dropped by to borrow his stir wand a couple of weeks ago.  Along with the beer and the wand was a note describing the "LP."  "My ESB named 'Lumpy' because of the clumpy appearance of the yeast . . ."  Great intro to the beer.  I love ESBs, so I had trouble waiting until the beer's bottle conditioning period was over.

The beer pours a lovely bright copper color.  When held up to a strong light, it seems to almost glow, as it has no detectable chill haze or other clarity issues.  It almost seems filtered, though I know it is not.  There is a thick white head that dissipates to a thin white foam layer within the first two minutes or so.  This layer of foam made belgian lace patterns down my glass while I drank the entire glass of beer.

The ESB has a mild yeast character in the aroma.  This is seems typical of the ESB style, which has very distinctive yeast-derived aromatic compounds.  I have smelled more aggressive yeast character in ESBs, but this was very pleasant.  It has a mild flowery/herby smell that is slightly earthy.

The first thing I detect in the flavor is a caramel-like sweetness.  This is followed by an interesting side flavor that is slightly reminiscient of canned corn.  Most brewers would twinge with this descriptor, but it is not really a bad flavor.  I think the beer could use a bit less of this flavor, but it is not too present.  The beer finishes slightly sweet, with a very nice level of carbonation.  I think the carbonation level is ideal, as if you have too much with English beers, it tends to make the beer thin and less-drinkable (I fault I found with my ESB).  Hop bitterness is slightly apparent, and in my opinion, could be augmented a bit.

In summary, a good ESB with excellent carbonation, color, and foam-lacing. I would spike the hop bitterness slightly and try to dry it out through higher attenuation to make it a bit more drinkable.  I am not sure what to say about the corn-like flavor, but I used to get it occationally when I was doing concentrated boils as an extract brewer.  I don't think that Jamey did that, so I am not sure where it came from, maybe specialty malts?

Thanks for the review, Tom.  This one turned out to be more of a special bitter than an ESB.

Most of the time when a canned corn flavor comes into play, it is usually a DMS issue.  The batch was all grain and it was kept at 70 degrees through the fermentation.  The grain billed was pretty garden variety:

10.00 lbs. Marris Otter Pale Malt (2-row)             
0.50 lb Crystal Malt 20L
0.25 lb Crystal Malt 105L   

If you are getting that, I can only assume it was some sort of sanitation issue.  I threw away all my hoses after that batch (not because of that batch, just because I do that every few months), so I can't go back and look at them.

I like this batch overall, but it does require some warming.  If you drink it straight out of the fridge, it is pretty boring.  But if you leave it out on the counter for about 20 minutes to warm, it is much better when you open it at pub temps. 

That is something I should do, is to get new tubing.  I have been using the same tubing for almost as long as I have been brewing.  There is something "sentimental" about it, which is silly, as I know it can be a contamination problem.  Do you just get rid of your flexible tubing, or do you get new racking canes and other hard plastic items?

Just tubing.  I dissemble my cane and clean that out with a little pipe cleaner-like brush. 

The tubing gets tossed twice a year.  It’s half psychological, but very cheap, so no harm.

I do have the same tubing on my wort chiller from 10 years ago, but no wort passes through that and it throw it in the boil during the last 15 minutes to sanitize whatever comes in contact.