A murky deep golden color is topped with a frothy head that leaves a good amount of lacing on the sides as it dies down to a thin blanket stretched across the top. The aroma is strong with this one. It's a spicy smell with pine and apple that puts me in mind of musty Christmas decorations.
First sip revels an echo of the aroma. As is often the case, the sip doesn't give a full story. When a beer is particularly complex, sipping it is just not enough time dedicated to letting the tastebuds filter out all of the complex tastes. The sip in this case is too much pine and I don't know where the musty taste is coming from, but I'm not sure it's helping things. Let's dissect this sucker.
Tip-in is spice and sour with carbonation spreading like Zima over the mouth. The middle hits with more carbonation on the top of the tongue with more of a biscuit malty taste; there is a graininess to the middle that gives it a richness that I wasn't expecting. The finish is in waves of fruitiness, sour, tart - which is not quite the same thing as sour - carbonation bite, and a kind of odd musty, humid, slightly smoky, decaying wood taste.
I'm not a fan of sour beers, but I will give this beer credit for being a good example of the style. So, I give it a completely average rating.
2.5
Goose Island Matilda Belgian Style Pale Ale
Sunday, December 07, 2014
I've had a few Goose Island beers before, and they've been pretty good. It made me choose to pick up this "high gravity" beer with a 7% ABV, a script that was meant to be on a wine bottle, and a label made from paper that I could use for a résumé. This is a very unusual beer from them, and a Belgian style is a bit of a gamble from most brewer.