Judging food by its colour can be a mistake. Red fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, cherries and apples don’t taste similar just because they have a rosy hue. The same applies to beer. Upon being served an amber coloured beer you can discern that you don’t have a stout or a pale lager on front of you (however much Fosters claims to be the amber nectar). But that still leaves a wide range of options: it could be a märzen lager, a pale coloured bitter or a Belgian ale. There are also beers that define themselves by their reddish colour.
English amber ales are usually a type of bitter that has been made with relatively few hops and which often have a slight sweetness to them. The Irish red ales usually add a caramel note to this mix. The main Irish brands are Murphy’s Red, Kilkenny, Smithwick’s and Caffrey’s (the later now brewed at 4% as it was found to produce a disproportionate number of hangovers at 5% abv). The style is also popular in places with large immigrant Irish communities such as America and New Zealand. Some of these have surprising flavours. The Monteith’s Celtic Red ale has the feel of a sherry cask whisky, Porter’s Rye Ale tastes like a Manhattan cocktail whilst the Prickly Moses Red Ale has leather, cherries and smoke amongst its flavours.
The continental European amber beers are called ambrées. Like the Irish reds the defining feature is usually a caramel flavour. This can be married to a spicy, bitter, strong beer like the Ellezelloise Quintine Ambrée, have a robust hoppy flavour like the Pelforth Ambrée or have a sweet, toffee apple flavour like the Chevreuse Volcelest Ambrée. There are also a number of Australian amber ales that are darker, sweeter siblings of the pale ales available down under. The James Squire Amber Ale is a mix of carrot cake and caramel whilst Pepperjack is a beer mixed with Shiraz wine.
Five to Try -
1. Monteith’s Celtic Red Beer
2. Pelforth Ambrée
3. Chevreuse Volcelest Ambrée
4. Mountain Goat Hightail Ale
5. Ellezelloise Quintine Ambrée
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