Golden Ale

Today I have Hook and Ladder’s Golden Ale. This one is a bit on the tough side because I have to come up with a category for it. Golden Ale is not really a style to define, so I will try to put it in a category I would enter it in, if this was a beer I brewed. Based on the brewers description, I will review this as a Blonde Ale. I have not reviewed a blonde ale yet, on here so this should prove interesting. According to the guidelines, we should expect a blonde ale to be “Easy-drinking, approachable, malt-oriented American craft beer.”

Aroma: The aroma is soft and sweet, with a mild fruitiness. At first sniff, the beer seems a bit flat, with a small amount of hop presence. But if you spend a little time there, you will get a bit of citrus and slightly spicy hop aroma, a soft malt profile, and some estery fruit aroma. All of which are acceptable to the style in the levels given, just not in this balance. There should be a bit more malt forward, and I feel the fruit is a touch too high. However, the aroma is nice and not off-putting. (7 points)

Appearance: The beer looks real nice. With a nice gold color, great clarity, and nice rocky head. The head retained a small but solid layer for almost the whole pint. (3 points)

Flavor: The malt profile in the beer on the flavor side is a bit small. There is a small bit of sweet and clean malt, along with a nice biscuit tone. The hop bitterness is spot on for this style, its balanced well with the level of malt sweetness and prevents the beer from becoming too sweet. There is a bit more of the citrus and spice bite in the hop flavor that I enjoy and wish there was more of it. There some fruit in the flavor as well, but not as much as the aroma, which is good. In the end though, the flavors that are there are nice, just a bit too small and the beer finished a touch too sweet for me. I wish it was a bit drier. (13 points)

Mouthfeel: The mouthfeel is in the medium range, with some good carbonation. The beer is smooth and creamy as the style should be. (5 points)

Overall: Overall the beer is quite good, just not outstandingly great. I really like the flavors and aromas in the beer, but just wish they were a bit more full. The fruit in the aroma was a tad high for my liking, but the hop choices and malt work quite well. In the end, this is a very easy drinking beer, I just wish it was a bit drier so the soft sweet malt didn’t linger so long into the finish. (7 points)

In the end I gave this beer 35 of 50 points. This is a solid B- or so in my mind. With a bit more of a bold punch in the malt end, with a touch less sweetness the beer would be up in the low 40′s for me. Still, this is a great gateway beer to serve your macro only friends.