Umberto's Ekò

There are a couple of vaguely interesting looking Italian beers in the shops which I must get round to at some point, but yesterday I spotted one I'd never seen before: an organic lager from Balvano called Ekò ("The Biologic Beer" says the label in comedy English).

On opening the 33cl bottle there's a wonderful and promising malt aroma. It's a pure malt beer and makes no secret of it. Pouring produces a fairly tight head and a body which is not so much cloudy as filled with discernible floating bits. The label reassures us that this is merely an effect of the organic production method. So far so good with the lumpy beer.

The malt is right up front in the taste, and the hops isn't too far behind, but it falls down in the aftertaste which has that musty quality I associate most with Red Stripe. Additionally the bitterness of the hops tends towards sourness. The bottle was fresh so I'm fairly sure this is part of the flavour, but it's not to my taste. One more slightly disappointing organic beer.