Another brief review:
It’s decent. Very straight forward and simple taste. Reminds me a lot of Newcastle Brown Ale. But here’s the problem: the brewery calls it a pale ale. If that’s the mark Mendocino was looking for, then they completely missed it. This beer has a very mild hop flavor, as opposed to the hoppy bite that pale ales should have. Like I said, it’s a good beer, but between this and Blue Heron, there’s not enough hops in their beers to be personally satisfying.
Type: Pale Ale
ALC/VOL: 6.1%
Color: Golden yellow, slight orange tint
Smell: Smells citrusy, orange/lemon type of citrus. Little bit of a wheat tone as well.
Feel: smooth, medium carbonation
Taste: Little bit of an apple juice taste, some honey overtones. Other than that, there’s not much. In my mind, Sierra Nevada makes the standard pale ale. In comparison to that, this beer lacks in hoppy bite and doesn’t have much of a flavor. It’s very simple, seems like it’s related to the big 3 American beers. This definately has more taste and hops than those beers, but it’s still a very simple taste.
Overall: Meh. I’m not exactly sure what to say. It’s not bad, not great though. Since receiving these beers, I’ve noticed that the Ho Foods (Whole Foods) near me sells beers from this brewery but compared to the rest of their selection, I can’t say that this would be on the top of my list.
For Christmas, the wife and I received a beer of the month subscription from our BFF, Emily.
We received our first shipment this week. 12 beers, 4 different types from 2 different breweries. The club is meant to introduce people to beer from small breweries in the country that only distribute locally. Not surprisingly, I’ve never heard of either brewery I received this month.
Mendocino Brewery is based in California and has been brewing beer since the 80’s. The extent of their success is mostly winning a few awards at California state fairs.
Second, Stegmaier Brewery is based in Pennsylvania. This company was founded in the mid 1800s by a German immigrant. Needless to say, I’m a bit more excited to try this brewer’s beer.
I’ve never written a beer review before. I’m going to start by trying to review all of the beers I receive from my 3 month subscription. This should be interesting…
