This little brewery that could really enjoys making beer that I'm used to enjoying. It seems like picking an extra pale ale is kind of going a step further. I don't even recall the last time I had an extra pale ale, let alone liked one. It's certainly not a style most breweries go for, and there's probably a reason for that, despite the fact that I don't know what it is. But, these guys have managed to make some really, really good beers, and I fully expect this to be yet another notch on the head post.
The quite cloudy beer is a brown-orange. It's almost as if someone has bruised a tangerine to get this color, and the murkiness just adds to the mystique. The head doesn't really want to come up very much, but it looks like it might leave a little bit of lacing. The aroma has stone fruit and citrus, but botanicals seem to be really intruding on them to dampen my well-known lust for fruity hops. So, if the taste follows the nose, this will be an entry, but it's not going to be a memorable one. However, very often the nose does not lead where you think it should.
First sip seems to start off pretty impressive, as the stone fruits and citrus seem to be really helping each other out. However, the back end of the beer seems to be really heavy with those botanicals and the fruit all feels bruised. It is an unbalanced sip, and it doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth, literally. This may still have promise with a full swig, but this is definitely not going to be a sipping beer.
Tip-in is quite bitter flowers and stone fruit; it is not a great start to the beverage. The middle is a shockingly good smooth mixture of fruits with enough heft coming from the malt while bitterness and botanicals are simply highlighting the freshness of the fruits. The finish, however, hits with more botanicals as the fruits go from tart and tasty to downright bitter.
Bottom Line: Not every bear is going to be a hit.
1.5/5
