Town Hall Centennial Pale Ale

RBSG 07. Clear copper, small head. Fruity, juicy, citrus, resiny aroma, very fresh. Same flavor. All hops here. Bittersweet. Medium to medium/light body, balanced. From notes.

On cask. Poured a nice slightly hazy, golden color with a beautiful head that only cask can deliver. Smell was citrusy and piney, with a soft biscuit note hidden in there too; even though the smell wasn’t real strong, it was still very nice. Taste is certainly hoppy, but there is an almost perfectly balanced malt backbone to it. Hints of sweet malt hidden behind a generous amount of hops in just the way Town Hall knows how to do it. Low carbonation levels and a medium body make the mouthfeel almost creamy smooth. Just amazing drinkability, I wanted to sit and drink this all day, but sadly I didn’t have enough time. Make a point to try this one when it’s available.

On tap at the brewpub on 6/22/07: Pours a transparent deep bronze with a full-lacing clingy white head. Aroma of big fresh citrusy hops and lightly sweet pale malt. Body starts with good light malty sweetness, nicely balanced with an assertive grapefruity piny hoppy balance. Very smooth, crisp and flavorful toward a slightly drier, lingering bittersweet finish. A very nice APA.

Pours a hazy orange amber, it remains hazy even after the cask pull cascading is long gone. Topped by a good inch and a half of thick creamy white foam. Great head retention. Fantastic thick paint-like, count-the-rings lacing throughout the pint. Perhaps the best lacing I have ever seen. Mild hop aroma, lightly citrus. No indication of what’s to come... I love the flavor - bold hops that are pine, floral, and citrus. These dominate the flavor, but there is an easily discernable malt backbone that is lightly sweet, and even a hair astingently smoky. A delicious grapefruit pithy bitterness shows up in the finish and lingers a good long time in the aftertaste. Medium body, very fresh and flavorful, with absolutely perfect soft carbonation.

Pours a yellow/orange with a nice creamy white head. Nice citric aroma and taste is the same with a nice persistant bitterness throughout. Nice mouthfeel. Another nice solid beer from Town Hall.

Cask. Writing from old notes. Swirling shades of cream lace the coppery hued body. Magnificent aroma - fragrant and floral, sweet, with warming spiciness. Immensely full flavor, especially in the warmer cask version, with enormous fruit flavors and sharply bitter, hoppy edge. Greets the mouth with the sweet, rich feeling of biting into a fresh peach, chased by a dry, flowery finish. A must have if it’s brewed again next year.

Re-released in December 2006: A major dissapointment. Offensively watery and wooded on cask, gratuitously bitter on tap with more of a leafy, spoiled, monolithic hop flavor. Likely a simple, though dramatic, issue of freshness. A sedated, lifeless shadow of its former self. Cue the requiem intro.

On tap at the brewery, August 2006, in commemoration for batch 700.
Translucent, nectary yellow with a steady film scum clinging to the edges. Aroma takes on sugary lemon grass, daffodils, citric corn chex, honeydew and marigolds. Could go either way. Flavor seethes static orange blossoms and elongated cotton. Dynamically refreshing. Centennial prominence projects mangos and spastic sugary orange drops. Melon and papaya are persistent in their tropically based citric showcase, with a clinging bitterness and a well supported and malcontented sweetness. Nectar laden wheat pipes the bittersweet arraignment, pursued by a crisp, orange glazed biscuit bite at the edges. Well-balanced, with a dry fruitiness melding well with the medium momentum format. Classic, aggressively balanced American pale ale, winding down with orange marmalade and a light yet authoritative clementine centricity in the end.

Cask, August 2006.
Settling. Suspended yeast is involved in the pillowy orange tinted cotton, as a one inch cap frames the beer with retracting marshmallow lace. Whetted sandpaper meets sprouts and the entrails of an orange rind in the aroma. Fresh, sugary hop bouquet peaks through with orange blossom honey and an autumn leaf’s seasonal mustiness. Smooth flavor portrayal of an orange rind edict. Mild, light tobacco wrappers circle round mango and papaya shards. Granted, there’s gentle carbonation to give a new persona to the formerly aggressive beer, conjuring motion in the slightest sense with the swiftest tongue flick. Citric glazed, almond sweetened bran flakes. Mild mannered, playing the part of a moderately bittersweet seducer.

Pale orange with a fine white head. Lemon rind, with a little orange. Good clean hop flavor, but a little funny rind flavor in the finish. A fine ale, but not a standout in a very crowded catagory.