Saint Arnold Amber:
Howdy friends and fellow beer drinkers and I bid you welcome to my continued effort to map the world of beers.  Today let’s round out the final beer in the year round line-up of Texas’ oldest craft brewery, Saint Arnold by looking at their original and flagship: Amber.  This brew, had a rocky start while it was being brewed by SA for initial release but the recipe off and an IPA was brewed instead.  Since most people aren’t IPA lovers it didn’t fly that well with the rest of the crowd (who were obviously not hop-heads).  Well, long story short, the error was quickly caught and they corrected the recipe for the beer to what we know today.  The beer itself was poured from a tap with a clear smoky gold color with not much head to speak of and a subtle nose of roasted malts as well as floral hints.  The beer’s taste profile is pretty uniform with a mainly malt dominated flavor that has variation of lightly roasted to bready with fruity hop undertones that seem to show up predominately mid and back tongue.  The beer is refreshing and clean with a light taste profile that doesn’t offend or polarize but that seems to be it’s biggest hand up as well.  The beer is so “safe” that it tends to lend itself into the world of “drink it and forget it” beers but to some of you, that is what you want in your beer and if that is what you want then at least drink a Texas beer if you can.