Avery Black and Tan

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Served on Cask at Avery Brewing Company
The beer is handed to me with a deep amber, brown tinged color that has a very spotty, tan colored head. The aroma has lots of roast malt character to it with notes of toasted whole grain bread, roast coffee notes, as well as lots of biscuit-like notes towards the finish. Fruity, berry-like hop aromatic notes start to become noticeable after a minute or two, after my nose gets used to the dark grain notes. The aroma is definitely more malt oriented, but the hop character does add a nice accent.

My first sip has a hop forward flavor of berries at first, but then it quickly develops a herbal note. The roast character comes to fore in the finish with notes of lightly roasted coffee, roasted / lightly burnt malt as well as a lingering hop bittered finish. Definitely nice and quaffable, this could certainly have been served a touch warmer though. This is interesting, but I would have liked to taste more of the ESB character. As it warms though a bit more of the caramel malt becomes noticeable as does more of the fruity hop flavors.