Whale Gulch Red Whale Ale

Brewed by Whale Gulch Brewery
Style: Amber Ale
Whitethorn, California USA

Bomber courtesy of rkuhnel. Pours a dark reddish amber with a 3-finger white head. Aroma of roasted caramel. A bit thin in body, with sharpish carbonation. Flavor has a slight sour note, and is somewhat vegged caramel. Finish is rather decent. It is unfiltered and unpasteurized. Could lead to issues. The water is untreated. Ditto. However, if it is just considered harsh, maybe it is fine. Certainly different.

My local Coop must have cleaned out the place. Like all this brewer’s offering it poured (from a 22 oz bottle) amber and with a nice head. Nose of hops and caramel. But something is somewhat off here. There in a musty odor in the nose and something odd in the flavor. I have a couple more bottles of this left. So will it get worse, or will it get better? I guess only time will tell. I guess if someone, somewhere is really anxious to "bag" one more brew for their march to 10,000 I would be willing to trade this swampwater for something equally bad. Or is bagging one more beer for the count really that important. Note: I have a few of these left, so after giving one to bhensonb and noting he found it OK I decided to crack open a another bottle and see what it tasted like after almost two years in the cellar. Marginally better which was a surprise . I won’t feel that bad when I trade these off to other ratebeerians.

Amber with a thin off white head. Aroma is caramel, honey, pale malt. Taste is slightly hoppy with honey and caramel. Body is noraml.

Bottle a gift from CCL_rW_mngr, manager of Country Club Liquors here in Bakersfield, brought to him from a friend at Humboldt State; nose is caramel, but musty; dark amber with a small white head; flavor is a little caramel, but tastes old and oxidized; but still better than most pale macro lagers.

Way murky dark amber-brown colour. Insane head. A little caramelly, very phenolic aroma. Light malty flavour is also quite phenolic Man, these guys have some bottling issues.

650 ml bottle. Very hazy, extremely overcarbonated. Aroma is soapy and fairly oxidized with a metallic hoppy aroma. Light fruitiness underneath all the stale cardboardy notes. Light fruity flavour with a bit of diacetyl and strong autolyzed yeasty notes. Has seen better days.