Peak Organic Pale Ale

Peak Organic Brewing Company
Brewed at Shipyard Brewing Company
Style: American Pale Ale
Portland, Maine USA

Tap at Brewtopia 2007: Golden pour with a creamy tan head. Vacant aroma. Hints of damp mash and grains. Has a somewhat creamy texture with a grainy malt flavor overall. There’s a touch of oat in there as well. This stuff has near "zero" hop character. Just full of grains, no bitterness. Boring APA.

@VT Beerfest–on tap-pours a thin white head and amber color. Aroma is citrus/flat hops, secondary medium malt. Taste is bitter citrus/flat hops, secondary medium malt. OK carbonation.

At a beer tasting in Concord, New Hampshire. Amber in color with a generous beige head. A good mix of malts and hops in the aroma as well as the taste. A bit more bitter than a traditional pale ale but that’s why I liked it more than other pales.

I bought this beer before reading what people here rated it and said about it. I thought I was going to be disappointed when I read the comments, but I was wrong. To me this is a really good pale ale. It poured from the bottle with a nice creamy head which left ample lacing on the glass. The amber colored ale had a slight hoppy aroma and a good hoppy finish. I thought the malt and hop balance was perfect for a pale ale. I didn’t experience any of the off flavors or odors that others have mentioned here. I would definately buy this again, and I’m glad I didn’t read the ratings first, because I probably wouldn’t have bought it, seeing that people were saying that it tasted and smelled like hay, cardboard and sweaty mold! I liked this beer.

Bottle. Fairly decent pour, clear amber with a big frothy head. Light caramel and orangey aromas with some grassy hops and a bit of butterscotch wafting up after a while. Cereal to light caramel malt flavor with citrusy hops. Kind of a thin and weak feeling body. Mouthfeel feels very ’extended.’ Overall, meh, meh and meh. I don’t generally expect greatness from American organic micros, or beers from Maine for that matter (Allagash an obvious exception). For what it’s worth, Wolavers PA is a better choice if you’re an organically-minded Whole Foods maven looking for an APA.

smelled like hay and malted barley. it was bitter and had a tang. it had a tinglyl ike character -something like a crappy ass pale ale- fruity flavors at first that pretty much just piss you off (because it is not really good pale ale. below average.

Pours with a translucent but hazy amber body with a half inch of off-white head. Smells malty, fruity, caramel, and butterscotch. Roasty caramel and chocolate malts play a big role with a fair bit of supporting diacetyl and fruity flavor. Unlike in many beers, the diacetyl actually helps this beer. Very balanced. The flavors mix, but also come through individually one at a time at different places in the mouth throughout a good sip in a way that few beers do. Medium in body with a bit less carbonation than expected. Overall this makes a good EPA and a tasty beer.

This beer was more pale-lager-like than pale-ale-like. It had a darker color, but the flavor and aroma was weaker, creamy and smooth, and there was not much complexity to the malt. The hops were weak, tasting of caraway and leaving a slightly bitter aftertaste. A metallic taste lingers. Bonus points for being organic, but it doesn’t have much else going for it.