Grateful Pale Ale

Grateful Pale Ale by Starr Hill Brewery is an American Pale Ale (BJCP category 18B) that hits on all cylinders: this is an excellent beer that you can drink for days.

It pours a brilliant gold with a low but persistent white head, and the initial aroma is of rich grain and grassy, piney hops. The nose is well-balanced, and doesn’t surrender all of its ground to the hops. The flavor adds peach to the mix, and otherwise echoes the aroma: honey and biscuit, pine, grass, and medium-high bittering come together nicely before finishing dry. If there’s a complaint here, it’s that the bitterness is just a hair too harsh: I felt a light prickling on the tongue that seemed to be caused by more than just carbonation.

I would note, though, that this is a very minor complaint in a very major beer. Easily one of the best pale ales I’ve had in a long while.