Classic Blonde
J. Boag & Son Brewing

 

Pours a light golden color with a decent head that fades to some lacing. Mild aroma of citrus with some malt sweetness and grain. Taste of mild citrus,with bit of malt sweetness and grain. Just a bit of bitterness and clean finish.

Format: a standard green 375mL bottle with a pretty ordinary macro label.

Appearance: poured out a light golden amber with plenty of chunky carbonation across the profile. A large fluffy head drops away pretty quickly. Looks like a decent but standard lager.

Aroma: smells of fairly cheap grains and some citrus, but really it's all a little weak.

Taste: a pretty standard low-carb beer - like an ordinary lager, but without as much taste, complexity or quality.

Aftertaste: disappears immediately, nothing at all - not even the lager bitterness dropping away. Again pretty standard for a low-carb.

Mouth feel: a light body with moderate carbonation. Feels a little weak and flaccid.

Overall: yet another ordinary 'low carb' American Adjunct Lager that doesn't come close to making the grade. I really don't get the whole low carb revolution that is thankfully dieing out now. Just have a midstrength lager instead. The price of AU$48 a case is a bit of a joke for something this boring.

 

A: Pours a light golden color with a decent head that fades to some lacing.

S: Mild aroma of citrus with some malt sweetness and grain.

T: Taste of mild citrus,with bit of malt sweetness and grain. Pretty bland. Just a bit of bitterness and clean finish.

F: Light body, fairly smooth but boring.

O: Another bland Pale Lager in an ocean of lagers.

 

Uncaps with nary a whisper, but pours reasonably fizzy and carbonated. Large bubbles form the carbonation and the head, leaving a scummy head of webbed white across the crystal clear golden body. It looks a bit unappealling overall, but it's about what you expect from the style.

Nose is sweet and yet empty, with a whiff of fizzy carbonation coming through quite strongly. Slight banana leaf character giving it an organic but lightly rank sweetness. Some corn comes through, which is a common theme with much Boag's beer—and seems to take up the slack from the lack of Pride of Ringwood.

Taste is rank. Really, really unpleasant. More of that slightly artificial banana character, before a honeyed corn sickness comes through to infect the palate with a fetid organic sweetness that feels extremely unsavoury. Lingering rotten caramel mixed with wet, roach-infested flour on the finish—I must remember not to inhale after swallowing, the gaseous unpleasantness left behind almost makes me gag.

Oh god. This is a really, really unpleasant beer. Worse even than their regular offerings, which is saying something.

Pours dark amber with a large, suddy, fading head.
Nose shows floral hops, sweet vegetal notes and little else. Faint caramel.
Similar overly sweet flavours, more vegetal notes dominating and big corn notes. Very little bitterness. Cloying.
Could use more carbonation to help dry things out a bite. Very watery.

Appearance - 3.5
Poured a finger of frothy white head over a clear honey coloured body. Left some decent lace on its decent.

Smell - 1.5
A gassy, stale aroma with a little grain and husk.

Taste - 2.5
Crisp, clean and devoid of off-flavours. Grain dominates, very little bitterness. Quite boring, very little in the way of taste, finishes dry.

Mouthfeel - 3.0
Light in the mouth, light to moderate carbonation.

Drinkability - 3.5
Refreshing and easy enough to drink. I've got no reason to drink it again, but I wouldn't turn one down.

OVERALL - 2.65
Pretty good for a low-carb beer, which isn't saying much. Drinkable but unexciting.

Pours a dark golden colour with a slightly reddish tinge on the top. Aggressive carbonation feeds a very healthy head of snowy foam. All said and done, well above expectations.

Nose is a bit nutty with a fair adjunct hoppiness, but all a bit weak. No bread yeast though, which is a touch above my expectations for this.

Fuck! Horrible as shit taste. Fucking bread yeast and shit. Like pouring undercooked bread down your throat, only thankfully without it sticking to the roof of your mouth. Finish is gritty and dirty, like going down on a mud-wrestler. Maybe a slight hint of herbal hops but I think that's either being generous or completely delusional. Absolute monkey of a beer. Maybe should be an exhibit in an art museum, displaying fine physical aesthetics but a satirical undercurrent of "Haha! This tastes like shit! Got you, stupid beer drinker!"

A - Clear dark golden colour with a 2 centimetre fluffy white head that falls away leaving substantial lacing on the glass.
S - Not much happening here; some vague grassy and floral hops. The metallic quality that is in basically every mainstream Australian "lager" rears it's head here too. No malt to speak of.
T - Initially an ok floral and grassy hop presence. But then the watered down slightly sweet grain taste kicks in along with that metal quality.
M - Light bodied, fairly high carbonation.
D - Not horrid but certainly not something for someone who actually likes real beer.

It is becoming abundantly apparent that carbohydrates add substantial flavour to beer.This I have concluded from drinking a number of "low carbohydrate" beers.All of which are flavourless
Boags Classic Blonde has not dissuaded me from this point of view.
The precvious review by Kulrak embodies all that I may say about this banal offering.
Classic it is not
Blonde it is not (Cuffs and collars wouldnt match on this one)
Full bodied it is not.
I will give all those calorie conscious drinkers out there a little heads up.
Save your calories on something other than this.
Forego a burger ,a chocolate eclair and choose a beer with flavour (and calories )

Pours a deep golden color with a decent amount of bubbly head that laces the glass. Smells like slightly yeasty water. Tastes like slightly yeasty soda water. No detectable hop or malt flavor. I'm not tasting the 'full bodied flavour' the label refers to. Mouthfeel is like seltzer, watery and slightly fizzy. I suppose it's drinkable, if you like alcoholic seltzer with a slight yeasty taste. I prefer beer, though.