Carolina Strawberry Ale

Brewed by Carolina Beer Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Mooresville, North Carolina USA

Date: 02/01/2008
Mode: Draft
Source: Woods on South

Appearance: hazy dark gold, dense cream head, streaks of lace,
Aroma: sweet strawberry aroma,
Flavor: big strawberry flavor, just enough sweetness to pull out the strawberry without being too sweet, otherwise quite light

Aroma: 6/10; Appearance: 6/10; Flavor: 5/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 10/20
Rating: 2.7/5.0
Drinkability: 7/10
Score: *4

Tap at Woods on South 2/1/08: Pours an effervescent golden with an airy, stringy-lacing white head. Aroma of floral fresh strawberries and some sweet pale malt. Body starts semi-sweet with good fruity earthy strawberry flavor balanced with a mild tartness. Finishes thinner and semi-dry. A pretty good fruit beer.

Bottle. Label shows 4.6% ABV. Rusty amber pour. Slight haze to this. Aroma is strong strawberry, strawberry jam, and sweet malt. Taste is tart strawberry, light hops, sweet malts, and ripe fruit. Body is light and very bubbly with a lingering berry tartness. Ends with more strawberry, more tart berries, sweet malt and light grass or hay. Not bad at all! Perfect summer beer!

Pinkish red, no head. Smells and tastes likes a strawberry Jolly Rancher dissolved in a run of the mill golden ale (I stole that description from tronraner, btw) Sampled at 2008 Knoxville Brewer’s Jam

12 ounce bottle from Total Wine Triangle Plaza, Raleigh, NC. Pours an orange tinted amber color with a medium head. Decent head retention and lacing. Slightly hazy. Aroma is candy strawberry with a bit of a cheesiness and very faint grass. Taste is lightly bready with very faint toast, strawberry cheesecake, faint grassiness. Thin and slightly watery. This is the start of a good beer, but it’s too thin and not well balanced.

Bottle at the Charlotte airtport. Very nice strwberry aroma, I was expecting something artificial but it is not. Pale yellow like any pale lager. Good tingly palate. Flavor is also not artificial as I was expecting. Not bitter at all. Friendly finish, one of the better fruit beers I’ve tasted. Good session beer for a fruity. Pleasantly surprized!

KBjam. Large strawberries on the nose. An orange/pink pour with tight white head and lace. Fruity and malty. Medium bodied with pretty good carbonation. A pretty tasty fruit if I do say so myself.

2008 Knoxville Brewers’ Jam. Pours pale gold with a pink hue and small head. Aroma is sweet semi-artificial strawberry and honey. The flavor is artificial strawberry and sugar. As Suttree already quoted me, it really does seem like strawberry Jolly Ranchers dissolved in, say, Carolina Blonde. It dries out just a little bit in the finish, just enough to keep it from becoming cloying. Meh.