Ithaca Excelsior! White Gold

Brewed by Ithaca Beer Company
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Ithaca, New York USA

Bottle purchased at Rozi’s in Lakewood. The aroma is this soft pillow of wheat and yeast, simple sugart notes and light musky grassy aromas. This has such a simple relaxed aroma I can’t stop enjoying how interesting it is in the simplicity and depth. The look of it is rather nice as well, hold it up to a light and it glows a simple soft yellow. This tastes more like a cross between a farmhouse and a wit. It has the best characteristic of both, without pushing itself into the big strong ale category.

Bottle. 25.4 oz. Split with Braden over a great meal. Pours honey golden with a moderate, slowly dissipating white head. Aroma of wheat, honey, barley, citrus, and spice. Medium bodied with an extremely clean, fizzy mouthfeel. Quick finish, Very good. Listed as a Belgian Strong, but definitely closer to a witbier.

Tart and lemon in both aroma and taste. I was a bit turned off at first by the "wheat" on the label...but this is no wheat beer. Very spicy and light. Zesty indeed. Tasty. Some hint of sour.

Bottle: E!0012, Poured a cloudy golden with a white head. The aroma was wheat, lemon, corriander and malts. The flavor was malty, lemons, funky, apples, and a hint of hops. Overall, this is quite an interesting beer, all for the better.

From a 750ml into a snifter. Pours with a TON of bubbly white head which dissipates in a few minutes to nothing at all. Smell is of lemons and yeast. Taste is of lemons, yeast, alcohol and fiz. It’s got some bite to it for sure. A damn fine combination of flavors which really go well with the carbonation of the beer. It’s a little too carbonated if you don’t pour with a little vigour... but take my warning, don’t pour with too much vigor or it will go flat. A beer that I’d happily drink again. Now for the bad. There was some crap on the cap of the beer and under the white plastic holding the cap on. It looks as if it were rust. I don’t know whether Ithaca didn’t clean off the excess beer that overflowed during bottling or whether the cap was defective/not put on correctly, but rust shouldn’t happen.

Bottle… Cloudy golden ale with some dark yeast chunks floating around and a huge, frothy, white head. Nice retention. The subdued, bready aroma resembles that of biscuits and honey. Medium-bodied with stinging carbonation. The flavor is sweet and lightly spicy with pale grains stepping to the forefront. Finishes sweet, and then dry. Bottle provided by growler!

Pours a clear straw yellow, with a massive puffy head. Lots of champagne bubbles floating up. Very clear; appropriate for style. Leaves a frothy lace. Typical wheat aroma, only a mild spice. Slight fruit of lemon, orange peel, even green apple. The malts are very estery and crystalline. The taste is sour apple with a wheaty base. Franco-Belgian, sweet and spicy alike. Pineapple. Minor leafy hop. Pale malts mix with the wheat "twang." Sour at the end, like sour apples. The mouth experiences a frothy thickness on the tongue. Bubbly yet creamy. It’s sweet and quite drinkable. A hint of sourness, but lots of tree fruits to balance it out.