Wisconsin Amber - Capital Brewery

Okay, so from the start let's get this out there: Capital Brewery elects to put on some of their products "#1 Rated Brewery in America" or some such message. Having tasted 4-5 of their beers I find this quite hard to believe. Anyways, I decided to look into it and apparently in 1998 they were rated #1 brewery at the World Beer Championships. Now look, I don't have anything AGAINST Capital Brewery, but I just don't get that...either they had a massive drop off, or the judged were paid off or something. The way I would describe Capital Brewery is just solid. They brew a lot of different types of beers, but from what I have tasted you don't really get anything truly SPECIAL from them. You get whatever style you purchase, and yeah it'll be better than a macrobrew like Bud/Coors/Miller most likely, but I don't think I would ever go into a place with a wide variety of tap beers and ask for something from Capital, ya catch my drift? At any rate, this was left from our BBQ we had a few weeks ago, so I decided to go ahead and give Capital Brewery some review love, since I hadn't hit one of their products on here yet. Anyways, here goes...

Vitals:

Name: Wisconsin Amber ("Beer for Badgers" is a nice touch on the bottle)

Style: Amber Lager

IBU: ??

ABV: 5.2%

Gravity: ??

Purchased at: left at BBQ

Descriptions:

Appearance: This beer is surprisingly more of an orange-red than a true deep amber. About a finger of head, off-white in color, that recedes pretty quickly, leaving some cap (some floating foam head) on top of the beer. There is some subtle lacing but not much else here.

Smell: Caramel malts are pretty heavy on the nose here from the outset. There may be a bit of burnt sugar smell in there too, but not much else comes out aside from the large malty aroma.

Taste: The beer starts you out with some sweet caramel malts, and this continues through the drink.  You even get a bit of a toffee-like taste here somewhat. I don't taste the burnt sugars that I thought I smelled, but maybe that just is the toffee-esque taste that I had. Right at the end of the drink you get a bit of an earthy/grassy/leafy hop flavor, with a slight bitterness to send you on your way to your next sip. The flavor is OK, nothing great really stands out here...tastes like a standard amber, honestly.

Mouthfeel: Light-medium bodied with a slight astringent quality right at the end when the hops kick in (not too much astringent qualities, so don't let this scare you away). The carbonation is EXTREMELY weak to the point of almost being non-existent, or so it seemed to me.

Overall Grade: B-

Comments: Like I said in my little monologue, this is a solid but not spectacular beer. If you like ambers and want something cheap that you can go with quantity over quality on, then go with this. If you're looking for something higher end, steer clear and go with the Sprecher Special Amber or another craft amber with more flavor and a heavier body. All in all, this beer serves its purpose by hitting standard amber flavors, but yet nothing really sticks out...as I have sadly come to expect from most Capital Brewery offerings.

Cheers,

Hurls