Spring Kölsch
Captured By Porches Brewing Company

When The Blue Moon Café moved and expanded their brewing system, they temporarily found themselves without enough house beers on hand to service their four beer taps. So this kölsch from their Columbia County neighbor Captured By Porches was procured as a stand-in. I didn't realize until after drinking it that it was a CBP beer and not brewed by Blue House. My surprise was amplified by the fact that the CBP beers I'd come to familiarize myself with were never so subtle and so drinkable as this.

Spring Kölsch beings with a tall white head on a body of warm orange-yellow. Carbonation showed itself to be well sustained throughout the leisurely forty minutes in which I savored my mug. (Blue House serves their beer in handled Mason jar mugs.) Cozy lace drooped everywhere. A modest doughy fragrance tinged with sangria-like fruitiness emerged, and the taste followed suit with a simple, refreshing sweetness so subtle as to almost be cushiony.

No excess hops. No intrusive bittering. It is a beer brewed to deliberate simplicity, but an exceptionally focused one with a wise absence of distracting theatrics.

Sampled at Bailey's Taproom on 5/28/09, reviewed from notes, color is a pale golden yellow straw, ½ inch soapy white head, some retention but no lacing, aroma had faint hops, bit of skunkiness, grain, lemons, bread, and barley, flavor has some dry hop flavors at first, then toasted malts in the middle, finish has a good amount of both lemon and oranges, this beer is quite crisp and refreshing with a very light overall flavor, weak and slightly dry mouthfeel, thin bodied, strong level of carbonation, could drink a lot of this brew as there is not much to it, thirst quenching, would go nicely in the spring and summer which it is targeted at as being a seasonal, very light, goes down with ease, would skip next time, looking forward to trying others from this brewery in the future though