Big Sky Crystal Ale

Brewed by Big Sky Brewing Company
Style: Golden Ale/Blond Ale
Missoula, Montana USA

Dry and grassy with underlying sweetness that never quite gets out. Simple taste, rather bland, even for the style. All the while, nothing offensive or "bad" about it.

The beer starts off promising and quickly deteriorates in drinkability. A good usage off hops is aparent - nice and lemony with a well rounded pine aspect, but the malt is just worthless. After the bitterness of the hops fades all is left is an extremely tinny character that is slightly astringent. The roundness of the beer starts promising as well, but it just dies into the tinny thinness. Not good, but seemingly fixable.

Tap @ Great Northern bar in Whitefish, MT. Appearance was like something from BMC (yellow w thin head) Flavor was similar but a bit more concentrated. Dry and a bit astringent & harsh with an off to me anyway taste/sensation (possibly alcaline). Not very good. Perhaps it was sitting on the CO2 too long. (tapped a month or more ago).

Light straw color with a wispy white head. Light aromas of pale malt, honey and mild light fruit. Light bodied. Light sweet malt swart with a touch of lemony cirtus to crisp things up. A general lawnmow’n brew.

Amber pour with a large foamy white head and some lacing. Lots of carbonation. Caramel and base malt aromas. Some hops, fruity and floral. Honey. Flavor is pretty malty with a decent hop character. Bitter hops at the end. Some honey and some bread or dough. Clean palate, medium body and a finish of bitter hops.

Clear, bright golden color, fizz, thin layer of whitish foam. Minor aromatics, mostly malty sweetness, a whiff of fruit, drizzle of honey. Lightness itself in the taste, delicate, and possessing a measured amount of flavor, just the tiniest amount, with a trickle clinging long on the palate, long after the swallow. Traces of apples and pears. High in the drinkability factor, easily quaffed, with just enough taste to make it worthwhile, but not enough to be memorable. An adequate stab at the style, but lacks that certian something that would really make it an admirable kolsch.

Bottle Pours quite light yellow/golden with a modest fizzy head. This disapears quicky leving very little lacing on the way down. Faint apple, and hopps, with a plain pale flavor of bread, hopps and slight cirtus. Finish is prety soft, with lingering slight hoppy biterness. Nothing special, colder would have been better.

Pours w/minimal head; body is a clear golden yellowish/orange; pleasant, moderately malty and fruity aroma, hints of pear and apple; sweet initial flavor followed by a quick dryness, clean and subtle; not bad at all.