Island Paradise Pale Ale

Draft at brewery, consumed 02/18/08. Medium copper hue, piney hop aroma. Good head retention. Piney hop flavor not a big surprise after nose. No malt character to speak of: one dimensional hop juice. Not for me.

(22 oz bottle: Purchased at the brewery) This is a complete re-rate since all the Island Brewing bottles I’d previously purchased from the booze store, or received in exchange from the brewery were infected. When I popped the cap on this bottle and the beer didn’t gush, and it didn’t smell like lemon juice, I knew that finally I had a good bottle!! And wow, it’s amazing how much better this beer is when not infected. In fact, this is a damn tasty brew. Very toasty and woody, lightly sweet, somewhat caramely, and that’s sort of balanced by a mild, lightly bitter and citrusy hoppiness, the citrus standing out in the finish. Very light caramel in the nose, but it’s quite woody and toasty, and somewhat tropical initially, though the tropical nature (slight bananas?) is diminishing rapidly, so that the nose is pretty much just toast and wood. Medium bodied, and very creamy on the palate for the style of beer, and the fact that it’s just a standard bottling. Standard amber in color, fully clear in appearance. The off-white head starts out fairly small to begin with, so it didn’t take too long to fade to a ring. Hardly any lacing is left on the glass. So bottom line is, if the beer is sour, it’s a bad bottle. The people are Island are really, really nice, and I wish them much success. The infected bottles was a tough start, but as this bottle points out, it looks like they’ve turned things around. A very nice pale ale, nothing too fancy, but very enjoyable.

Clear copper apperance, moderate head formation. Mildly spiced, strong fruity aroma. Light bodied palate, caramel malt, almost sugarry, dry bitter grapefruit towards the end.

Purchased in California, sampled in Alabama after resting a few weeks. Poured with a nice looking fluffy off-white head. Nice hazy orange color with minimal brown hints. Lightly sweet on the nose but I also detected some metallic and sour hints. Now for the taste. If this is how this was meant to taste I am very surprised. Nothing at all like any pale ale I’ve ever had, and nothing like I would expect (and not in a good way either). Sweet and sour is the predominant taste. Sure, there is some lemon/lime/grapefruit flavors but in an over abundance. Very acidic and sour. I thought it had gone bad but given some of the other descriptions I’ve read about this brew I think this is how it was meant to taste. I was looking for a thirst quenching pale and got something which I actually poured out. Not going to have that again, and I hope the other bottle of stuff I got from these guys is better.

Pale golden in colour with copious amounts of fluffy white head that clumps to the side of the glass as you drain it. Moderate hop aroma from dry hopping or late kettle additions. Moderate citric hop flavor, clean malt character, fruity esters and some diacetyl leave you with a medium-bodied, dry finish. This is no SNPA, but it is OKAY.