Beer Club 02/18/12 American Pale Ales

February gave us a chance to try something that wasn’t just a seasonal. After the Winter seasonals and the stout tastings, I wanted to try something on the lighter side of things. The American Pale Ale is arguably the most important American craft beer other than the IPA. These beers are a nice way to show what American brewing is often about, without getting too hoppy. Besides, I love these beers because they are sessionable and go great with so many types of food.

We started with one of my favorite beers to come out last year, 21st Amendments Bitter American. It’s a 4.4% session beer that packs a great flavor punch. This beer was generally liked, but fell a bit flat compared to the bigger beers that we drank after this.

We moved on to one of my favorite party beers. The plain old Full Sail Pale. There’s nothing amazing about this beer, but it’s more than solid beer at a great price point.

Deschutes Mirror Pond is a classic. This was definitely on the malty side compared to the other pales. I think this was pretty well liked because of that, but I personally prefer on the hoppy side.

Of course, the most classic of them all is the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. This might have been the least favorite of all the beers we had. I was really surprised by this, especially since this was actually MY favorite of the bunch. It’s got this amazing citrus hop flavor that didn’t resonate with the other palates.

Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale was next and quickly became the favorite of the night. This was the biggest beer at 6.5% and was definitely on the malty side. Go figure, this was MY least favorite of the bunch, but people really loved that grainy malt flavor.

We finished the night with another Deschutes beer, this time the Red Chair NWPA. I put this last because I figured this would be the hoppiest of the beers. And it was, in terms of hop flavor, but actually had a very mild bitterness. Because of that, people actually enjoyed this one quite a bit. I did notice a hint of diacetyl, that I don’t recall before, but the tasting would probably make that more noticeable.