Summit Extra Pale Ale

Brewed by Summit Brewing Company
Style: American Pale Ale
St. Paul, Minnesota USA

I drank this beer after having several "crappy" beers beforehand. This beer tasted pretty darn good after the swill I had been drinking (it was a wedding). Nice balence of flavor, hoppy, but not overly so. I good overall pale ale, and one of the few beers I’ve found from the Twin Cities that I actually enjoy.

Bottle - courtesy of matta. Slightly hazed copper with a small off-white head. Aroma is odd. Sort of sweet but with a nice lingering bitterness hiding in there. Kind of like waffles and syrup mixed with a bunch of hops. Taste has much more fruit than expected. Slight hints of berry, sweet tangerines, and light melon. Light floral hoppiness, sweet malts, hints of maple syrup and light spices. Light toasty notes to this as well. Body is medium with moderate carbonation. Finishes more bitter than it began. Light earthy hops, mild citrus(mainly orange), toasty malts, and light spice. Pretty good stuff!

Much thanks to WaWood for sending this one my way.

Poured a lovely bronze body and a bountiful white head. The aroma is crisp and biscuity… a lovely hops addition in the drying finish. Rather woodsy, hit of citrus but rounded nicely with the caramel malts… almost a hint of rye. Never giving too much of any one characteristic….
This would make for a wonderful session beer, probably one that I would buy regularly if it were available here.

Pours light amber with nice beige head. Well balanced citrus hop and sweet malt, in both the aroma and flavor. Great lacing. Decent APA overall.

Orange body. Extremely hoppy presence in the flavor. I immediately followed this glass with Summit’s IPA and this one definitely is the hoppier of the two.

Well... to finish out the end of American beer month, I will sample and rate this pale ale. Mild aroma of dry hops and somewhat herbal in the nose. Juicy with mild hoppiness for flavors, certainly not over the top. Finishes out grapefruity and dry. A good example of a mild pale ale.

Let me start off by admitting that I dislike pale ales in general. Having said that, this beer is pretty good. The nose was that of an evergreen that grows citrus fruits. The colour was a reddish tinge, more of an amber really. All similarities in my mind to a pale ale ended there, when I first sipped this ale. Very nice mouthfeel, not too heavy or light. The oily piney bitter taste I expected never appeared. Sure, it’s more bitter than a brown ale or a porter, but for an American Pale Ale, this was quite mild. I now have an open-mindedness to experiment more with this style, and would have no qualms about introducing it to other anti-hopheads like myself in the future.

Light amber color with a decent thin head. Slight hop aroma w/ citrus. Nice dry hoppy finish. Decent