Ottos Arthurs Nugget Pale Ale

Cask @ Otto’s. Hazy light amber body with a small off-white head. Piny, citrus nose with some graham cracker and caramel notes. Moderate to light sweetness with a balancing bitterness in the taste with juicy orange, tangerine, light pine and caramel. Medium body is very soft with light carbonation.

Cask @ Otto’s. Pours a hazy, orange-auburn color; thin white head with web-like lacing. Pleasant amounts of wet hops (oranges, passion fruit, tree fruit) in the aroma; hop-dominated structure. Medium mouthfeel: relaxed carbonation (just enough); solid, chewy wet hops and bread and loads of oranges and passion fruit; very flavorful, drinkable pale ale. Medium finish: toasted cereal, oranges, and bread.

Cask draft. Pours dark straw with off-white head. Nose is lemongrassy hops, pale malt, some mild yeasty spicy notes. Very fresh wet hop taste, plus pale malt, citrus, and some mild yeast. Smooth, stays resiny hoppy throughout, and is crisp. This one is yet another great beer from these guys.

Cask at Otto’s. Hazy amber with a fine bubbled off-white head. Very fresh, tangy, grassy, yeasty nose, even some sort of cheese funk in there as well. Medium bodied, about normal for the style and cask serving, with a flavor that’s grassy and dry at times, and then turns more dank, cheesy, yeasty, and bitter. A good hop for this sort of English pale ale, I think. Some fruity orange and grapefruit notes showed up when warmer, amplified I think by some of the food I had with it. Finishes with more of the funky-cheesy yeast. A good one.

On Cask at the brewpub. Fresh waft of sweetgrass, lemon rind, hemlock bough and tannic leaves. Fresh, but subdued. Pours a lightly cloudly orange, with a crisp rind in soapy, soft sand. Flavor is gentle, lightly carameled and ripe with juicy hop cones. The dirty flavor of the Nugget piles through and drenches the palate with earth, leaves, bark and walnuts. Chewy, crisp and full. The Nugget resin hangs heavy on the tongue and bears a metallic burden. Not the most exciting hop for a single varietal presentation. Malt plays well, if a nip sticky and the cask presentation and mineral profile of the yeast bolster the beer for roundness. However, I just can’t dig the hop signature.