Fair Maiden Ale
Founders Brewery

 

Another brew from the Local Taphouse's Kiwi SpecTapular.

Bright golden copper colour, with a good head of fine off-white. Lace is thick and sheeting. Very light body—very fluid. Looks decent enough. Not exciting, but decent enough.

Nose is soft and mild, with a greenness and a certain clean hop character. But mild: very mild. There's a bit of malt here too, giving a touch of pastry sweetness, but guess what? It's mild too. At least the balance is right.

Taste is soft with a light mild bitterness, and again ... sigh ... mild malt giving a touch of vanilla, meaning it's not unbalanced—everything just sits smoothly with everything else.

Drinkable and light but very restrained, almost unhappily cautious. Decent enough in it's way, but quite unexciting.

Pours a clear golden colour. Head is beige, nice and dense with gorgeous clouds of lace. Light bead; looks great.

Where's the nose? No hops here, just light grain. Cereal and barley, touch of vanilla. Slight floral rose character. Bland. Bad, even.

Taste is mildly better, grain with more complexity. Puffed rice and pearl barley, with a touch of English toffee providing an earthy sweetness. Slightly metallic on the finish, but not a lot of character. Bit bland, but not bad.

Quite full, but flat, without a lot of texture.

Definitely needs something here to balance and cleanse the palate. Grains are all well and good but the result here is just a flat, bland beer. I'm certainly not getting those hops they promised.

Good orange, pineapple and grape aroma with no malt character.

Clear, golden colour with a small, white heady. Foamy yet creamy head.

Exceptionally balanced. Plenty of biscuity malt with some refreshing bitterness. The hop flavours are muted and could be more forward.

Mediunm body with moderately-low carbonation. Smooth. A bit more fizz may actually help this beer along.

A good NZPA but lacking a bit in the hop flavour that would make it very good.

This is the second brew i have had from this brewery and i hope it is as good or better than the last,it pours a see thru copper colour with nice carbonation that leaves a two finger dense head with nice lacing here and there,the aroma is pretty much like the last i had from this brewery not much at all but it does have a feint cherry,passionfruit aroma to it with a caramel maltiness aswell,it has a nice full mouthfeel which fills the palette with tastes of mellow fruity hops mixed with some caramel malts and no flavour is dominant but they match perfectly together with only a touch of feint bitterness right at the end,i dont know what it is with this brewery but in my mind their brews lack that full flavour/smell in your face effect that most other microbrews have maybe it is the organic factor but i dont know for sure but there is definately something lacking in their brews and ill be the first to happily admit it.