Portsmouth American Pale Ale

Brewed by Portsmouth Brewery
Style: American Pale Ale
Portsmouth, New Hampshire USA

(with bravo hops) @Pauls Girardin chugging-courtesy of microgrog-22oz bottle–pours a rich light tan head with bubbles and copper color. Aroma is mild pine hops, medium malt. Taste is herbal/pine hops, medium malt.

Pours amber with a small head. Sweet malt with some hops in the nose. Very smooth taste. A bitter bite at the end with a sweet aftertaste. Its good and a little sweeter than most, but nothing sets it apart from any other APA.

Pours a honey colored body with a frothy white lace. The aroma is sweet, herbed, spice, sugar in the background. The taste is so smooth it starts on the palate hoppy and herbal with a bitterness kick followed by a honey sweetness on the palate and finishes with a tannic herbal tea tanginess, quite a refreshing ale.

Bottle. Pours a clear coppery color with a thin white head. Ordinary, almost boring aroma and flavor of mild floral and citrusy hops with dominating butterscotch and a strong bitter finish. The body has a light to medium thickness with an oily texture and lively carbonation. The butterscotch is too dominating.

Lots of butterscotch in the nose with some lemon-citrus and honey tones. Clear orange-brown body is topped by a low but lasting white head that recedes to cover with some lacing. Some biscuity malts are detectable beneath the caramel and butterscotch with some citrus hop character and a jarring bitterness that seems far too pronounced. Very dry, well attenuated medium light body with fair carbonation that is somewhat short-lived. Bottle sampled with beerbuzzmontreal, MartinT, Olivier_MTL, Rastacouere and Yowie.

22oz bottle. Clearish copper pour growing a thin off-white head. Very sweet nose with explosive diacetyl features that annoy more and more as it warms up. Caramelly malts and floral hops dominate through and through. The bitterness levels is high for an APA, but it grows chalky and with a strong astringence that kills the maltiness. Light-medium bodied, fari carbonation. I didn’t mean to rate that one, knowing it’s a regular at the brewpub, but I unfortunately need to recommend skipping on the bottles.

Draught pint at the brewpub, 12/27/2005. Pours a hazy golden-hay with light amber tints and a smattering of white head that is fairly quick to recede, but leaves light lacing. Aroma of rusty, metallic-like yeast, though fresh, with a bit of an alcohol presence and some quite bitter and acidic hops. Very intensely floral, mild citrus (very dry grapefruit and lemon) with only a touch of caramel and pale malt doughiness. The flavor comes off not as unbalanced, though quite hoppy up front. More floral citrus notes, quite bitter but are held in check, lightly by the pale malts and heavy dough presence. A bit of an acidity lingering on from the hops, a certain sharpness, that is present in a lot of Portsmouth’s beers, but as it warms, a rustic, hay, and dry grains flavor emerges (which also seems to be present in alot of their beers). Fully grainy, with a fair amount of carbonation and low alcohol apparency. The hops build up, but do not linger as long as in the IPA, nor is there as much malt sweetness.

On tap at the brewpub:
Fat butterscotchy maltiness offering round, toasty sweetness...Potent back hop bitterness balances it out, as haystacks dry out the second half’s leftover sweetness...A genuine smile...

Bottled:
That fat butterscotch is really too much, diacetyl impinging on other flavors’ will to breathe...The genuine smile dissolves to neutrality...