This Season’s Blonde

This beer is labeled as an American Blonde Ale, or category 18A in the BJCP guidelines. You should expect this beer to be an easy-drinking, malt-oriented style that is well balanced, clean, and refreshing without any aggressive flavors.

The beer pours a deep gold and very clear. It has a low, fizzy white head with moderately poor retention.The aroma contains lightly floral hops, and a low bready malt character. There is also some low background honey notes as well. Although for the most part the aroma is clean, there is a light apple-like character initially off the pour that fades fairly quickly.

The flavor matches the aroma fairly closely with some lightly sweet bread and honey-like malt. The hop flavor is very light and floral, which matches nicely with the malt. There is a bit more of a citrusy edge to the hop profile in the flavor than I picked up in the aroma. Bitterness is on the lower end of the scale, but does the job of balancing out the sweetness. The flavors are clean and balanced nicely, with a slight edge going to the malt. The beer is lighter bodied, with a moderate carbonation. Even with the carbonation there is a pleasant creamy presence to the beer.

All in all I think this is a solid American Blonde ale, but for even for a such a light and delicate style I felt this beer just could use a bit more hop and malt presence. Not much, but at times it did come across a bit too light.