Viking Brewing Honey Pale Ale

Brewed by Viking Brewing Company
Style: English Pale Ale
Dallas, Wisconsin USA

Bottle thanks to Skyview! The slow gusher poured medium orange with lots of sediment floating around in there.. nice cap of white head on top. Aroma was of sweet floral, honey, and grassy notes with underpinnings of caramel and some more honey. Flavor had quite nice usage of honey at the core paired with English toffee.. floral and grassy bitterness rolled outward, leaving grasses and honey at the finish. Lighter-bodied on the palate and a touch grainy.. felt pretty good. This exceeded expectations.

Picked up a four pack at The Coffee Grounds in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Pours a clear dark amber brew with a thick and lumpy off-white head that leaves behind an excellent lacing. Aroma of sweet roasted caramel malt, clover honey, with a touch of citrus zest. Taste is medium bodied, light carbonation with a honey toffee and citrus flavor. Finish is slightly sweet, with a toffe and grassy hop bitterness in the aftertaste. The finish taste has more toffee than the citrus flavor.

Bottle. Clear amber body with a huge fluffy white head. Dulled orange rind and oatmeal cookie in the light aroma. Dissapointing flavor. There’s honey, orange sweetness, and sugar cookie up front but the flavor is marred by an strong papery astringency in the finish.

clear deep golden brown with a thick frothy almond-colored head. aroma is quite strong on the honey, which is rare for a honey ale. flavor is very sweet and has a bit of tartness at the same time, there is a fair amount of buttery toffee in the flavor to boot. there is a very familiar aftertaste to this beer, but hard as I try, I cannot pinpoint it...this really is better than I expected.

Dark honey-brown, dense white form head. Sweet candy edge that is rather curious--like Skittles. Vegetal and honey flavor. Grassy and murky finish. Thin, losing carbonation in the body. Not very enjoyable to my tastes.

Bottle. Nose-rather neutral and muted, but notes of honey malt and ceral come out. Taste-slight acidic sourness, the flavor that you get from the unsweet portion of honey, and muted citric notes. All in all flat and boring.

I used to hold Viking in pretty high esteem, especially after sampling a whole table of high-quality offerings during a visit to the brewery. More and more of that esteem is chipped away with each bottle I try these days. The last 3 Viking beers I’ve sampled have all had the same sharp, tart-fruit, metallic off-flavor. The honey pale ale I’m looking at right now is no exception. Shame, that. It starts out promising enough with a good fluffy head on pour, sitting atop a pale orange-ish amber liquid. Very nice English hop spice, slight malt sweetness and honey in the aroma. Then comes the flavor -- that persistent tangy tart metallic flavor that has now become an unwelcome staple in the Viking lineup. Something’s not right at the brewery these days. I hope they get it back together soon; I really liked their stuff before it went sour (literally) and I had high hopes for this brewery’s future. I hope I don’t have to write them off for good.

Thanks for the bottle, JPDIPSO. The body is a medium amber with a thin head that shows that slightest of yellow tint. The aroma is very tropical with pineapple and oranges. There is also a little caramel. The taste is caramel with some maraschino cherries. There is also some bubblegum. An interesting and different brew. Thin mouthfeel. Nice for a summer beer.