Kirkland Signature Pale Ale

Brewed by Gordon Biersch Brewing Company
Style: American Pale Ale
Palo Alto, California USA

Light copper color no head. Aroma has light pine hops and light caramel malts. Flavor is metallic bitterness with a lingering metallic flavor. Light caramel malts and bitter hops.

12 oz. pours slightly hazy medium amber with a half finger tan head. big tangy buttery nose with some pine and cat box. fizzy medium body with caramel, pine, butter, and ammonia. not super pleasant.

Wow... I never thought I’d be rating a beer with the Costco brand label on it. Oh well... that said, my first impression: it poured like a lager. It has an extremely yellowish-tinted orange color and a fastly falling, fine and thin head. Aroma very weak, of lager-like hops. Not bad, just weak. Aroma thin and a little hoppy but with a strange metallic bitter *thing* that hangs out at the tip of the tongue. Very light body. Not a bad beer, just a little weak and weird. But I’ll take what I can get when it’s free.

I love all things Kirkland and am also a big fan of Costco, but this beer was a genuine let-down. As a craft beer fan, I love hops that really punch you in the face, but as a realistic beer consumer, I also know that a lot of people who drink beer DON’T like this, and as a result there are quite a few more mild mannered beers out there, which is fine. I guess what is disappointing to me about this beer is that the name "pale ale" sort of implies to me that at least some discernible hop presence is contained within the bottle, and I did not find that to be the case here. Much like Bud American Ale, which promised hops and taste and delivered a disappointing blandness, I feel as though this beer is not what it implies. It pours an attractive brassy color, with a pretty nice amount of head. Aroma is biscuity and malty, and not really at all hoppy. Flavor is very mildly hoppy - these beers are relatively new and the one I tried I thought was fresh, but the flavor within reminded me of hops gone bad - like when a super hoppy beer gets old and loses both its hop punch and its balance, becoming a big malt-ball. Mouthfeel was unremarkable. I love Costco, and I am a big fan of their store brand (Kirkland), but that respect does not extend to their beer. I cannot in good faith recommend this to anyone.

Bottle from Costco - Cincy. Poured a clear amber color with an average frothy white head that mostly lasted with good lacing. Moderate citrus hop aroma. Medium body with a slick texture and soft carbonation. Medium bittersweet flavor with a medium bittersweet finish of moderate duration. This is an just above average drinkable brew.

Cheap sickly sweet. Some floral hop flavor, almost no aroma. Pretty decent looking though. Not horrible. I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy it though.

Bottle. Amber bodied. Medium, foam white head. Nose is toasted malt, spicy hops, grassy notes, buttered biscuit. taste is more grassy hops, light lemon, soft caramel, fruit, yeast notes and buttered biscuit. Body is light-medium with a strong bubbly carbonation. Ends with a lingering hop bitterness, aspirin-like at times, grapefruit, caramel, buttered biscuit and grassy notes.