Archive for the 'Triangle' category
Triangle Imperial Amber Ale
On, this our 800th review here at SevenPack, it seems only right that we should get back to our roots and have a taste of something local to the Dirty D. That’s why I popped open a tasty bottle of the Triangle Brewing Company Imperial Amber Ale, brewed right here in Durham, NC.
The Imperial Amber pours a very deep cloudy amber color with substantial dense debris and a caramel head that dissipates fairly quickly, leaving only a thin layer on the surface of the beer. The aroma is rich and malty with heavy doses of caramel and some sweet bready tints with a hint of cinnamon. In the mouth, the beer first displays a semi-sharp bitterness on the tip of the tongue. Through the mouth, this bitterness grows and spreads to the side of the mouth, making way for sweetbread and aniseed that begins to develop around the center of the mouth, giving rise to a better balanced blend of the bitter and the sweet. In addition, this has a very substantial mouthfeel, with the texture and the flavor spreading all over the mouth. As the beer continues to the back of the mouth, the predominant presence is bitter and rich and earthy. However, you’ll notice that the flavor has a tendency to slide down the scale towards a sweeter beer as the glass warms to room temperature. For my taste, this could stand to have a bit more sweetness all around. However, I must concede that this beer does taste complex and refined, and it certainly has it’s place amongst some of the bigger Amber ales out there in the market. So, overall, I’m impressed, although this won’t become the first of Triangle’s offerings that I reach for. While it hasn’t been reviewed here yet, I confess that between Triangle’s Belgian Golden Ale and Big Boss’s Hell’s Belle on draft at the local pubs, you could probably account for 60% of my beer intake this season. In addition, I quite enjoyed the Habanero Xtra Pale Ale and brewer’s talk at the World Beer Fest last weekend. So, suffice it to say that I’m a huge fan of Triangle and I’m super-excited to see what else they bring to the table in the coming months!
