Chuckanut Organic Golden Ale

Brewed by Chuckanut Brewery and Kitchen
Style: Golden Ale/Blond Ale
Bellingham, Washington USA

Draft at Uber.
Beer geeks spend a lot of time musing about what makes the perfect brewery, and a lot of time musing about how the true session beers can get lost in the whirlwinds of great new big stuff and weird stuff coming out all the time. Chuckanut is the perfect little curl at the crest of the craft brewing wave--they’ve taken everything other breweries have learned about how to please beer geeks and carved out a tiny little niche for themselves. That curl they occupy almost seems like it’s tucked so far under the peak that it’s pointing backwards again, but that’s a good thing.
Chuckanut almost seems backwards because they’re going back to a time before we all went through beer 101, picking the most common styles from supermarket shelves from years ago, and making them delicious in immaculate batch after immaculate batch. I’ll never stop loving the great examples of enormous barleywines, impies, dipas, and the rest. But some of the breweries making those beers seem like they almost have to be next to the train tracks to get all their grain in the door, and sometimes they release stuff that tastes like they’re just hoping to recoup the cost of the grist.
Chuckanut comes along and pulls the rug out from under breweries (that get a little too carried away when they do batches) like that. This beer is a perfect example of why, for several reasons.
First, it was never clear that they would be doing ales.
Second, next to american wheats and brown ales, american goldens are some of the most indifferently-brewed beers in the world. Which makes a lot of them utter crap.
Third, these low-flavor, low-gravity styles are the ones we always say we WOULD drink more of, if anyone would brew a decent one.
Does this beer equal the pleasures of a Kaggen or some such? No. But that’s ok. Not least because you can go down the street and get a full pint for a few bucks.
Anyway, the beer.
Pours a fairly hazy, almost cloudy bright golden yellow. Creamy, thick, platinum blonde head. Looks dense and refreshing without looking like it’s going to make itself a factor in your digestive habits for the next 12 hours.
The nose is a bit mild-mannered: some hay, perfumey grass, maybe a little corn. The corn is toasty, rather than roasty, which saves it from being a detractor, but I could still probably do without it. Tiny quibble.
Nice, creamy, drink-all-day body of moderate thickness. Feels and moves like an ale, but nothing sticky or oily or viscous at all. The grass, hay, and toasty corn come back on the mid-palate, with maybe a little bit of sweetish light brown bread there. Very light brown bread. Mild earthy hops give it a little contrast as it winds down.
Chuckanut has been consistently putting out brilliantly flavorful and refreshing low-grav lagers for a few months now, and it’s nice to see an ale--especially from such a beleagured style--join their lineup. These guys conjure up great beer from very low-footprint recipes, and have certainly turned my head away from bigger beers a few times now. They’re like the Robin Hoods of Washington brewers, and they deserve everything good that happens to them.

Sparkling gold,stark white head. Light crisp hop nose. Light, sweet somewhat bland start, good hops in the finish