Rock Bottom South Denver Willow Creek Pale Ale

tap. hazy straw pour. thin head. lacing. nice dry hop aroma. smooth. nicely hopped. perfume hops, grain, nice balance. mild bitterness.

Draught at Rock Bottom South Denver. Pours hazy yellow with a small, fizzy, white head, diminishing with fair lacing. Aroma is average malt (hay, straw), average hops (flowers, citrus), and average yeast (dough). Medium bodied, sticky texture, average carbonation, and a bitter finish. Average duration, light sweetness, moderate acidity and bitterness.

light yellow with a touch of brown & a thin white head. citrus hop aroma that is light & conveys some sugars. taste is prickly citrus- lemon with a metallic cornflake grass note that is oily. drinkable, but subpar.

The Rock Bottom set of reviews is a reflection of my hasty attempt to drink a small quantity of many beers and produce accurate and helpful reviews. Clearly I’ve failed, but I hope my incoherent and cryptic critiques can help at least a few folks who wander in and want to know what to order. A previous lesson with pale ales taught me that the variety within this hopsy branch of beers is slimmer than others. I was led to believe that mistakes were harder to make, and a brewer’s margin of error would be more lenient. Rock Bottom’s Willow Creek Pale Ale ripped that naïve belief right out of my skull. A good pale ale is bitter, sure, but wreathed in a well orchestrated mix of other good flavors. Apparently, the brewer forgot about those entirely when mixing up the Willow Creek Pale Ale. Never did I think someone would have the audacity to make me pay for a glass (although small) of liquid sloth and flavor avarice. Clearly there was no effort put into elevating this offensive pale ale past the taste of tugboat fuel. At least I know what to do with it in a pinch if anyone sees to afflict me with it as a gift. What’s worse is the Willow Creek’s effective disguise. Neither the semi-cloudy, relaxed good appearance nor the innocuous smell give any warning to a would-be drinker. By all means, this beer deserves to be called fiendish and nothing else.