HeBrew Genesis Ale

Shmaltz Brewing Company
Brewed at Olde Saratoga Brewing (Mendocino Brewing Co.)
Style: American Pale Ale
San Francisco, California USA

Cold 12oz bottle: Pours a clear dark orange amber color with minimal ivory bubbles. Aroma is of hops and malt, with a note of orange. Lightly fizzy on the tongue. Taste is moderately bitter with some underlying sweetness to it. Smooth; not overwhelming in taste.

Pours a slightly cloudy amber with small fading head. Has a bitter flavor that sticks to the back of your throat. They call this the Chosen Beer. Good. I choose to not drink it again.

Looks nice, smalls okay and then it goes downhill. Spicy enough to be a pale, but missing something major. Average brown with a kick is how I would describe it.

2006 bottle consumed on 8/20/06.
Ahhhhh! It makes me angry to even review the beer, much less drink it (which I didnt, I poured this DMS cocktail out).
Classic Saratoga appearance - initially full, fizzy head bolstered by copious amounts of hard, large bubbled carbonation. Head fizzles out, no lacing, no retention, no ring. Body is clear, filtered. Smells pasteurized, dead, full of DMS and stale malts. Soily, rotten, bland, metallic hops. Crude. Not complex in flavor, with sharp, aggressive, overcarbonation. Simply an abomination of the brewer’s art. How/Why this brewerey is able to put out stuff like this, side-by-side the Mendocino Winter Ales, is beyond me.

Bottle. Pours bubbly amber with a cream head and nice lacing. Barley wort on the nose. Flavor is cereal and hops that feels nice on the tongue. Great beer. "It’s a very tingly beer. I kinda like it." Someone in Kansas City, MO said that. I don’t remember whom. Matzel Tov! (sp?)

on tap-pours a foamy light tan head that laces with copper color. Aroma is medium hop. Taste is citrus medium hop with bite, secondary malt. Good carbonation.

Light floral aroma, maybe a bit of malt. No citrus. Medium amber color. White fluffy head. Starts with malt. Continues with malt. Finally some hop comes out at the finish, but the malt is still pervasive. Guess this is East Coast, so the hoppiness is lower. Pleasant enough, but 6% is too much for session, and this is not a standout I’d seek out. Still, it’s pretty tasty. Grows on me.

Bottle. Pours a medium amber with a thin white head. Nothing really striking comes through the aroma. A little floral hops, but little else. The flavor is really balanced. A nice malt body, but a great hop finish. Nothing overwhelming about this beer, but it is a nice drinking beer. A good session beer.