Short's Autumn Ale
Autumn Ale is a true-to-style London Extra Special Bitter (ESB). It has a medium body, amber color, and full flavor. This beer exhibits a wonderful balance of malty sweetness and floral hop bitterness. The result is an ideal bridge between malty and hoppy beer styles. Autumn Ale is a silver medal winner from the 2006 Great American Beer Festival.
3.2
177 reviews
Bellaire, United States
Community reviews
Bottle: Poured an burnt orange with heavy sediment, head was thin off white. Aroma is heavy on malts and sweet. Taste is light bitterness, leafy, malts. Numb feeling on my tongue finish.
Super thin head on top of a super clear red pour. Aroma is full of caramel. Light mouth. Taste is caramel and a little grain. Strong finish that is almost spicy. Not overly flavorful. No lace.
Pours an amber color with a thin white head. Aroma is sweet caramel malts, fruit, and bread. Flavor is much more mild, with a very light bitterness and some sweet caramel and bread. Has a light body. Not bad, but not too memorable.
12oz bottle. Medium off-white head atop clear amber body, small beige head. Aroma is medium sweet, orange, some grapefruit, biscuit/bread. Taste is moderately sweet, grapefruit, some orange, bread, light biscuit. Light-medium body, light stickiness.
Bottle to pint. Looks decent; lots of fine sediment floating around though. A semi-transparent burnt orange with foamy eggshell head that slowly dissipates into lacing. Smells malty and lightly hoppy with a semi-sweet backbone. Tastes like it smells with a medium-bodied mouthfeel. Not bad, but unmemorable.
Short’s Autumn Ale pours a cloudy bronze orange with a decent beige head that lasts a good while. The aroma is floral and bread. The flavor is also floral and bread. Overall this is pretty mediocre beer.
352 mml bottle tasted on the 21/10/2014. Fruity and hoppy aroma but not all intense that it must be. Clear orange colour with a minimal bubbly white head. Taste of yeast, herbs, grass and flowers note. Bitter on paladar. Nice aftertaste. Medium body and medium carbonatin. Next one please!
Bottle. Pours cloudy copper color with a medium beige head. Fruity and malty aroma. Medium body with moderate carbonation. Mildly sweet with hints of citrus and a tart, bitter aftertaste and crisp finish. Nice ESB overall
660ml bottle (Birofilia2014, Zywiec)
Sweet nuttiness and rich malts, caramel. Rich orange, small head. Sweet malty taste, some husks, some nuts, toffee in the finish. Old walnuts, some dusty dryness.
330ml bottle. Clear dark amber color. Tiny to almost no head. Sweet, malts, caramel in aroma. Malty, grassy, hops, mineral in taste. Thin palate. Grainy, dusty aftertaste.
I am reviewing this from notes recently found from a time I spent in Michigan.
I had bought a bottle and this was poured into a pint glass.
The appearance was a hazy orange to brown color with a nice one finger white foamy head. The lacing tries to speckle itself around the glass, but ends up sliding for the most part.
The smell is quite earthy and rustic in an English sort of sense and leading into a nice maltiness reminiscent of a nice Autumn day.
The taste is an earthy malty Autumn-spice-like (ginger, maybe some pumpkin spices).
On the palate, it sat light to medium with a nice sessionable aspect to it. The carbonation is good for the ESB style and for me as its somewhat smooth but not too smooth and ends up having a decent creaminess running about my mouth and tongue.
Overall, good ESB coming from an American Brewer. Way to go, Short’s! This makes me wanna retire in Michigan.
12 oz bottle to pint glass. The pour is a dark orange, perhaps a little copper, but dark, with a light tan head that fades down to a ring, leaving some decent lacing. The aroma is big on bitter in the front. It then fades through a little bit of a sweet caramel malt and touches on a vanilla note before the maltiness takes back over. The flavor is initially a bit bitter, with a good solid maltiness, but that's it. There isn't much else here, which is a little disappointing. The mouth feel is really thin and watery. There isn't much carbonation at all, and the aftertaste is a little bitter, but vanishes quickly
12 ounce bottle into pint glass, bottled on 8/29/2013. Pours moderately hazy deep orange copper color with a 1-2 finger dense light khaki head with good retention, that reduces to a small cap that lingers. Light spotty soapy lacing clings down the glass. Aromas of caramel, toast, biscuit, toffee, pear, apple, grape, orange zest, floral, grass, herbal, light pine, and yeast earthiness. Very nice aromas with good balance and complexity of malt, yeast, and hop notes; with good strength. Taste of caramel, toast, biscuit, pear, apple, toffee, orange zest, floral, grass, herbal, pine, and herbal/yeast earthiness. Fair amount of earthy floral/pine bitterness on the finish; with lingering notes of caramel, toast, biscuit, toffee, pear, apple, orange zest, floral, grass, herbal, pine, and yeast earthiness on the finish for a good bit. Very nice balance and complexity of malt, hop, and yeast flavors; with a good malt/bitterness balance and slight cloying bitterness after the finish. Medium carbonation and body; with a smooth, crisp, and moderately sticky mouthfeel that is good. Alcohol is very well hidden with only a slight warming present after the finish. Overall this is a very good ESB style. Good balance and robustness of hop, malt, and yeast flavors; and very smooth and crisp to drink. A nicely enjoyable offering.
On tap at brewery. Aroma has a great balance of classic nutty, cereal, bread malts and subtle hops. Very well done. Medium dark amber hue with an off-white head that left great lace. Sweet flavor. Palate is medium-bodied.
Bronze orange. Quite a huge bitterness on the nose almost resinous. whoa. Lots of spice that almost resembles a mix in rye and pumpernickel bread. Very hard to drink a lot of this one.
12oz bottle, thanks to umich03jm. Clear red orange color. Thin off-white head. Fades to minimal. Only a couple loose bits of lace, not much sticks. Medium to bigger body. Smooth, very light, sort of crisp carbonation. Some tropical fruity hop, light peppery. Toasty malt, light caramel. Moderate bitter taste, light sweet. Solid ESB.
Bottle from Ølbutikken. Hazy dark orange with an off-white head. Aroma is sweet, malty, caramel and moderate hoppy - citrus and oranges. Flavor is medium sweet and moderate bitter. Dry and moderate bitter finish. 031213
Pours a caramel color with very little head. Has a very citrusy, floral aroma. Has a very bitter but hoppy flavor, but finishes kind of flat with a dark chocolate, nutty flavor. ok but not great.
Bottle. Overall pretty good ale with mild tastes and medium body. Probably what it was designed to be and is very drinkable
Bottled 9/12/13. Poured into a ... ahem ... a shaker pint. A glass is better than NO glass, right?
Appearance: Super hazy brown/orange color, almost like the color of the bottle the beer is in. Finger of a light tan head. Not much lacing. This beer certainly says Autumn to me.
Smell: For some reason, I thought this almost gave the aroma of a new car. I drank it, I let it warm up a bit, I tried to study it... I came to the conclusion that this smells like Autumn. That’s probably due in large part because I know what the beer is and see the label, but it gives me that impression. It smells like fallen leaves on dirt.
Taste/feel: A lot like the smell. Just a really easy drinking beer without much depth in flavor. You get the dirty sort of malt flavor. A slight hop spiciness. And that’s basically it. Quite earthy flavors in here. There is very little bitterness on the finish, my guess would be about 30 IBUs. The feel is about what I had expected. A medium body with a pretty light carbonation.
Autumn Ale’s a fairly enjoyable, albeit forgettable, beer from Short’s. I love the label on it, the beer looks great when it’s poured, and it has a decent flavor, but there’s just not enough depth to really keep my interest. Regardless of that, I could see myself enjoying a few of these while watching the leaves fall. Sometimes I don’t enjoy a taste of a particular beer as much as I enjoy the bits of nostalgia I get from it... this is one of those beers. Just makes me think about jumping into a pile of fallen leaves. I think the smell and taste of this beer actually sort of captures that, as weird as that sounds.
Light brown to mahogany pour, slightly cloudy with a half inch of white head. Cottony scent, lemon citrus, sweet fresh cut hay. Average to low carbonation, medium body and clean finish. Mellow flavor, Carmel malt and well rounded citrus flavors, a bit of roastiness and melon. Nice and easy drinking beer with a bit of character.
Bottle. Pours a hazy dark amber color with a very little head. Aroma is bready and biscuity with some light caramel and oranges. Taste is mildly sweet, light caramel, light citrus, light bitterness. A very safe, ok, fall seasonal amber.
Bottle. Pours a clear copper with quickly settling, white head. Essentially no lacing. Aroma is sweet, malty, nutty, toffee. Flavor is similar, sweet malt, nutty, caramel, with a nutty, biscuit malt finish. Essentially no hops. Soft carbonation, medium-light body, and juicy texture. A mild, sweet, malty beer.
Flaske: Orange ravfarvet meget let diset øl. Fint skumhoved. Duften er let maltet men med en god del engelsk blomsterhumle. Smagen er også fint balanceret med en smule bitterhed til at bakke maltsødmen op. Lidt kedelig men det er stilen.
Pours hazy amber, thin white head. Aroma is pretty bland. Mild caramel malt and that’s about it. Flavor is mild bitter, malt, caramel, and some stale bread. Good seasons, but nothing too complex or special.
From a bottle. Definitely drinks more like an IPA, crisp, very tasty. Fresh and hoppy.
Bottle 12 fl.oz from erzbierschof.ch. Autumn dark coppery, average and ochre foam, some laces, fine crackling. Malted aromas, yeast and fruity, almond, toffy and herbs. The taste is soft, light, fluid with biscuit and caramel, earthy and grassy notes, grapefruit and fermentation. Finish on fruity malt with a hoppy bitterness of citrus.
Bottle, amber in appearance. Caramel malts in the aroma. Taste of caramel and toffee with a nice bitter finish. Easy drinkin.
bottle. amber orange with small head. substantial caramel malts. dry, lightly hoppy finish.
Orange and cloudy with thin white head that dissipates quickly. Aroma is thin, fruity, grassy with some hops. Taste is fruity with a somewhat bitter after taste. Dry mouthfeel, medium body.
I am often underwhelmed with Short’s beers, maybe because there are just so damn many of them. But in this one, Short’s hit the nail on the head. Will buy this again.