A Year of Craft Beer, Vol. 126, Troegs Pale Ale

Good evening!

I hope you are enjoying the Philly local temperatures!  It's hot, but it's not humid so it's completely bearable.

Tonight seems like a good night for an American Pale Ale which is a pale ale of recent invention and can be of local ingredients to the brewer, if desired, and is stepped up a bit in ingredients from a pale ale.  The category seems like it's pretty broad to me with no real specifics to look for.  The one I chose for tonight is from Troegs in Hershey, PA and it seemed a good idea as I have recently had a few other local APA's and can compare notes.  Let's have a look!

I poured this beer fairly cold from the bottle into a tulip glass and it poured a gold to amber color clear and crisp with a two finger head that settles to a nice full ring and Friar Tuck center cap with lacing that looks like Charlie Brown Halloween ghost costumes on the glass.  GHOUL!  Er, cool!

The aroma is of sweet pale malt, lemon peel and floral aromatic hops and some grapefruit-like yeast esters.

The sip starts off mellow and mildly sweet with pale malt and caramel with a bit of floral hops for good measure and as the the beer passes across your tongue and palate some of that sweetness fades and grapefruit mixed with the malt sweetness is balanced with the now more apparent floral and citrus hops and finally the beer finishes with hop bitterness overriding a bit of malt sweetness.

The moutfeel is light and smooth, slightly dry and leaves a slick feeling on the tongue.  Carbonation is moderate and playful.

Overall, I find this beer incredibly drinkable!  The body is light enough as to where you can drink a few on a hot day but not session them.  Preferably they would imbibed indoors in the AC.  At first this beer is not at all that bitter but by the end of the glass there is an aftertaste for sure making this a tough beer to recommend as a transition beer from pee-water but making it an excellent example of an APA!  This one is tough to score.  I don't like the slimy feeling on my tongue and will have to take points for that but all in all, EXCELLENT!  4 out of 5!!

Don't like hoppy beer?  Give it time.  Once you get your lazy arse off that couch and out to the pub to try something different in your life, you will gain an appreciation of the positive attributes of hops!

-Wiss