Mouthy Muskie Ale
Northwoods Brewpub and Grill

 

 

Appearance: Pours a cloudy, pale gold body with a small white head.

Smell: Odd, distressing aroma of rotten lemons and perhaps corn.

Taste: An equally odd, but even more distressing flavor of abandoned citrus fruits and musty corn. Good grief.

Mouthfeel: Light-bodied. Medium carbonation.

Drinkability: The muskie or "ugly pike" is an appropriate mascot for this beer.

A decidedly macro looking beer thats a very clear pale yellow color. No real head or lacing. This is the high point of the beer. All downhill from here.
The nose is like eutrophic pond water. Thats all I really need to say about that.
Let me try to describe the taste. Do you ever wonder what they do with the veins from deveined shrimp? Ok, thats too classy... do you ever wonder what they do with the veins from deveined crayfish? Well they stick 'em in a food processor to make a thin bloody-blue paste, let it sit in the sun for a few months, then use it to flavor this beer. Maybe they add some dead newts while they're at it. Or maybe the newts were still alive so they shit themselves and they included the newt shit in the beer. I'm not exaggerating. It's just that god-awful.
Mouthfeel is thin and unimpressive. Drinkability is quite low... I might drink another bottle of this if someone gave me a minimum of $15.

I can only hope we got a few bad bottle of this.

a single bottle tried the other day with friends. tastes like something you might chum the water with to catch a muskie. smells like wet fur and shad enzymes. expected a fish eyeball to glob out of the bottle neck. best part of drinking this beer was when we called the brewery to ask the ABV, whether it was made with muskie, and why it sucked so much. if their beers are better on draft, why not just offer them on draft? this is total crap in a bottle.

Pours out light, pale gold and sits light golden amber in the glass with a small white head that fades to a faint skim; pretty much bare.

Smells of sweet fruity flavors of apples, peaches with a straw-like, grassiness behind it all. Bits of honey mixed in here and there.

Tastes lightly sweet up front, maltiness minimal, some off lemon-sourness noted. Grainy and husk-like flavors ensue. Bittering of hops adds to the effect, and leaves the mouth dry and with the flavor of band-aids stuck on every corner.

Watered down and the boasts the related light body. Carbonation is good. I'd be happier if I never had to drink this beer again.

After the other bad bottles I had from this place, I had some concern, but this one was not skunked or otherwise ruined. Pours a very pale straw color under a thin but persistent head with a nice stream of bubbles. Advertised sweetness seems to come from corn, though. There is a slightly fruity ale taste, but otherwise it seems little different from an American Standard. This was not on tap when I visited, so I took a bottle home, and at least this one is closer to the way the other tap beers tasted. Their homepage only describes this as a "light, golden ale," not the most professional description, and one that suggests they're aiming for the home crowd instead of beer geeks.