Revolution "Sun Crusher" Summer Ale

As I write this, it is a warm summer day. As a result, I feel that this might be the right day to try this new summer ale from Revolution Brewing. Strangely, I don't have a label for summer ales, and I don't really know how often I actually run across them. So, this is just gonna get labeled an ale, and the chips will fall where they may. I'm not sure that anyone other than me even bothers to use those site labels.

The only moderately cloudy beer is a nice, bright yellow with a low yet reasonable head that dissipates to a single lily pad of mixed bubbles in the center of the beer and a ring around the sides that leaves trails of lacing behind it. The aroma is quite citrusy with one or two rinds tossed in to make this seem a lot more interesting. With 5.3% ABV, I'm not sure how easy this is going to be as a crushing beer.

First sip strangely has more pine than I anticipated. Pine isn't really known for being particularly crushable, but I distinctly get the pine needles that are mixed in with a whole trove of citrus flavors. The citrus seems to do a good job on the backend of making this a lot smoother than the pine would normally allow, but I'm not sure why the pine is there at all. Am I just tasting something weird in the sip? Maybe there's something wrong with my taster.

Tip-in is moderate (and growing) carbonation sizzle with fruit rinds and pits getting tossed at my tongue and no pine to be seen. The middle sends the ruckus of carbonation to the top of the mouth while citrus juices flow delightfully underneath; the juices are a joy to behold. The finish is an answer to where the pine came from, and it is not pine; the fruit rinds combined with the bitterness and carbonation to disrupt the citrus flow in a way that the sip misinterpreted.

Bottom Line: With a little less carbonation, this would really knock it out of the park.

3.25/5