Brewery At Lake Tahoe Alpine Amber Ale

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 5

as with all their beers, this one was a bit of a letdown. not a whole lot to report on here...slightly substandard malt and hop aromas and flavor. Nothing bad, but really nothing good. re-rate 6/09: 4th best of the 8 they were serving...doesn't really say a whole lot. not BAD, but not worth the price of a pint. darker than usual.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 4

Meh. Nothing I haven't had a bazillion times. Nothing to distinguish it from the other Amber ales that's out there. Aroma is iced tea, lightly sweet caramel and clean hop. Appearance is maple syrup brown, little head. Flavor is more iced tea, caramel with a light piney hop. Very drinkable, but boring as hell.

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

A classic case where the beer you end up drinking almost exactly matches up what you expected. How so? Read on.

I expected this beer to be a fairly standard follower of the "Amber Ale 101" line of beers. That is to say, what Pete's Wicked Ale used to be, say, 10 years ago: malty enough to matter, bitter enough to balance, and enjoyable enough to warrant multiple re-visits. Nothing too complex, but still with enough gumption to make a statement or two.

With that frame of reference in mind..., this beer follows each and every rule-of-thumb for American Amber Ales to a tee -- even going so far as to make sure that the color is closer to a Red than a muted Amber/Brown (ala British Mild).

I liked this beer well enough, but wish the brewmaster would take this style to the next level, vice playing it safe with a beer that seemingly every Tom, Dick, and Harry-brewpub puts out by the mega-barrel (and that every homebrewer cuts his/her teeth with just starting out).

A worthwhile beer, overall, that is both hard to fault, but also hard to get really excited about too.
//TB