Beer Review: Great Lakes Eliot Ness

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: 6.2 percent

Appearance: Eliot Ness poured a lovely-looking deep amber color. With its dark brown, golden and medium ruby red hues I stared with a dropped jaw for at least two or three minutes. Then a foamy white head protruded almost to the rim of the glass, but it fell just a tad short. This opened the way for some thick and sticky lacing inside said glass.

Smell: The aroma from this beer was appropriately complex. Overall, this brew had a darker smell to it. There was a toasty profile. The sweet caramel had a slightly roasty feel to it. I also got a deluge of bread and crackers which I love. There was also a mild hop nose. The sweet notes only intensified as the brew warmed up closer to room temperature.

Taste: The caramel was the initial taste I noticed as is usually the case with a malty brew. Some roasty malt followed before some crackery bread flavors mixed well with that. The hop bitterness was a bit more pungent than what I noticed in the smell, but it just worked well with the dark and bready flavors in this. The finish was punctuated with the some bitter kick. Some carbonation texture was also there which I always love to have in a beer.

Overall Rating:

One of the first times I visited Burgatory in Aspinwall I tried the caramel pretzel milkshake with the burger I ordered. It had that sweet and salty taste that a lot of us love. Good Vienna Lagers pull that effect off. Eliot Ness was one of the brews that fall under that category. An excellent experience in just about every aspect of enjoying a beer. Medium dark and roasty. Lovely color and texture. A small hint of sweetness. Nice bitter kick to compliment everything. It's a laundry list of goodness.