Olden Times
Al's of Hampden / Pizza Boy Brewing

A thanks to the commander of the canquest, woodychandler, for this beer. Poured from a 16 oz. can. Has a pale straw color with a small head. Smell is of grains, a bit sweet. Taste is sweet, oranges, malts, refreshing. Feels medium bodied in the mouth and overall is a beer I would love to try during a hot summer day.

At long last, I am finally getting around to an extensive brewery horizontal to clear out a massive backlog in support of The CANQuest (tm). I knew that I had a number of their beers in abeyance, but it was not until I beCAN assembling them that I realized just how extensive my inventory actually was. 4/16.

From the CAN: "Handcrafted In Enola, PA"; "PIzza. Beer. Happy."; "Olden Times Cream Ale"; "Proudly Brewed In Pennsylvania".

This one may have a tough time with me since one of my all-time favorite beers is Genesee Cream Ale (Genny Cream), dating back to my early-teens when we used to give a friend's older brother $ for his beer runs to neighboring MD, where the drinking age was 18 y/o. He would pocket our $ & bring back high-end imports for him & his buddies & inexpensive CANs for us. Of all of them, I loved Genny Cream & hated Stroh's. We also got to try Blatz, Schmidt's, Reading, Schlitz & a host of others in their original iteration so in retrospect, it worked out. Still, the taste of cold Genny Cream, fished out of the creek in which we stored our beers, remains a personal fave. Others really have to work to measure up.

I Crack!ed open the vent & beCAN a slow, gentle C-Line Glug into the awaiting glass. It produced a finger of rolling, fizzy, foamy, bone-white head that appeared & disappeared as quickly as I poured, finally leaving me with a full glass & naught but wisps. 8=( Color was Pale-Straw (SRM = 1 - 2) with NE-quality clarity. Nose was sweet & bready, but I did not smell any corn, meaning that perhaps brewer Terry Hawbaker had made an all-malt version! 8=O Mouthfeel was thin & watery, but that is par for the course in the style. The taste was sweet, bready, very malty with still no sign of corn. Yay! I gotta say, it may not have been Genny Cream, but it sure was tasty on a hot, humid Summer's day. Given its CANparatively-low ABV, I was crushing the shizznit out of this beer! Finish was semi-dry in spite of all of its maltiness, making it really thirst-quenching. Mmm. YMMV.