beer_name: Hale's Red Menace Big Amber
text: 12 oz bottle poured into a nonic, Red Menace is a murky dark chestnut with a thin ivory head that leaves moderate lace. I like the color but there's not enough head. Smell is soft toasted malt, semi-sweet with perhaps a touch of brown sugar. Taste doesn't have that touch of sweetness on the nose, and is pretty standard toasted malt amber, with no distinct hop pressance to speak of flavor or bittering wise. I've done a NW amber tasting tonight and this one is perfectly average. No real flaws, but totally indistinct. Not sure exactly how strong this is, they only give the OG, which is pretty pointless w/o the FG! Still, it's 1.056, so if this finished at say 1.015, it's only 5.3%...not very big at all! Mouthfeel is average, perhaps a bit slick and thin. Drinkability is average. Blah, boring, one and done with this one.