Blind Tiger Holy Grail Pale Ale

Draft at the Brewpub, the standout beer on my trip for me. Pours a copper body with a white head. Grass y floral green tea like bitterness. Tea leafs, and fresh cut grass. Black tea and a mild tawny bitterness. Awesome.

Date: February 24, 2009
Mode: Draft
Source: Brewpub
Appearance: clear dark copper, fine off white head, heavy spidery lace
Aroma: light floral hop aroma
Flavor: sweet caramel malt flavor, light balancing hops, touch of bitterness in the finish
Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 7/10; Flavor: 5/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 10/20
Rating: 2.7/5.0
Drinkability: 7/10
Score: *4

Tap at KCBM competition. Pours is completely clear amber. Aroma is hoppy with citrus and tangerine hops, just a beautiful medley of citrus and tropical fruit hops. Taste losses some of that crispy hoppiness, still clean and a bit of slickness-like flavor coming off.

Poured out of tap. Poured a a light orange body, not much of a head though, the hops add a great flavor. Overall a pretty good beer. If in the Topeka area stop in an taste.

Interestingly, this beer experience seems to be the inverse of my experience with the raspberry wheat. While my predecessors seem to have found this to be a pretty respectable APA, I found it to be average to below-average. It pours a nice amber/orange with a creamy off-white head which reduces to a thin ring around the glass. Caramel malt and only the faintest note of indistinguishable hops are on the nose. Maybe floral maybe citrus? There’s something there but the overall aroma is pretty muted. Light to medium-bodied with a tight bitter end. Oddly, the caramel malt that dominates the nose is overpowered by spyicy/earthy hops. Not particularly well balanced, I found this one pretty rough, although it was the first of six samples to show any significant hop presence. Again, I have to wonder if this was an "off" batch that they just ran with or if they’ve changed in the recipe. Only one of the other rating has been posted in the past 12 months, so it’s hard to say. Either way, I wasn’t blown away by this one.

On tap at the brewpub. The body was dark gold and orange. The aroma was strong grapefruit with some toast. There was also a decent amaretto note. The taste was grapefruit and caramel. There was also peanuts in this mild brew. Middle of the road.

Very light to the lighter side of medium bodied. Nice floral hoppy aroma, with some light citrus and a bit of a cookie dough maltiness. Slightly bittersweet, with some nice caramel maltiness, and a semi lingering finish, that is slightly bitter. A good pale ale to sit around and drink all day.

On tap: VERY light yellow/gold almost to fault I feel like. There is a touch of reddish-brown color, but still very yellowish golde and too light of a color. The aroma is of malty goodness but the flavor has a slight bitter taste.