Big Chief Cream Ale
Mission Springs Brewing Company

Beer Geek Stats
From:
Mission Springs Brewing Company
 
British Columbia, Canada
Style:
Cream Ale
ABV:
4.5%
Score:
Needs more ratings
Avg:
2.24 | pDev: 17.41%
Reviews:
3
Ratings:
4
Status:
Retired
Rated:
May 13, 2012
Added:
Jan 11, 2003
Wants:
  0
Gots:
  0
No description / notes.
Recent ratings and reviews.
Ratings by trevorwideman:
Photo of trevorwideman
Reviewed by trevorwideman from Canada (MB)

2.15/5  rDev -4%
look: 2.5 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 2 | feel: 2 | overall: 2
650ml bomber poured into a tulip glass.

Pours a light hazey and unfiltered orange-copper colour with very mild carbonation. Head consists of a few soapy bubbles and a thin lace that sticks around for a bit. Good thing, or else it would just look flat. All of this brewery's offerings that I've sampled have had very little carbonation or head retention, but were very fresh as I bought them from the brewery iteslf. Aroma is mostly malty, a bit of cloying caramel sweetness, mown hay, and a very subtle light roastedness. Not really much in the way of hops, just a slight earthiness and grass.

Taste is really messy. There's a sharp metallic bite right off the top, and an unpleasant acidic sourness follows. Some grasslike flavours, and a dank potato-cellar type flavour. Very tart for no reason, the malt profile is next to nothing. Some vegetable flavours begin to kick in and wow....this is just bordering on awful. Watery, undercarbonated, unbalanced, and extremely dry without the pleasure of anything close to a clear hop profile. It's going to be hard to choke down a bomber of this.

This beer has no clear direction at all, it's not even flavourless. Flavourless might be preferable.
Jul 17, 2007
More User Ratings:
 
Rated: 2.25 by bumchilly25 from Canada (BC)

May 13, 2012
Photo of BDTyre
Reviewed by BDTyre from Canada (BC)

1.73/5  rDev -22.8%
look: 2.5 | smell: 2 | taste: 1.5 | feel: 2 | overall: 1.5
Wow...just wow. This is the first real bad beer I've had from Mission Springs. Just wrong. I can't even call this a cream ale.

It starts off looking sort of like a cream ale: light copper-orange colour with a fluffy white head. But its cloudy, very hazy.

The scent is almost skunky, and smells of sour malts and weak hops. Very...musty, like a dusty old basement.

Taste is just bad. Sour, off-taste. Very..dank and tastes just wrong. Not at all like a cream ale. Metallic, over carbonated. Almost no sweetness or creaminess. The taste is almost bordering on a bad macro lager.

Overly-carbonated and definitely not worth coming back to.
Jul 17, 2008
Photo of 49degrees
Reviewed by 49degrees from Canada (BC)

2.83/5  rDev +26.3%
look: 3 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 3 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 3
Not as exciting as one might hope for from one of the newer breweries on the West Coast of Canada. This light copper colored ale is described by the brewery itself as "a lighter bodied copper colored beer. A good beer for those who like OK Springs Pale Ale or Rickards Red."

Based on fuggles hopping and Pale Ale, ESB, and Honey Malts, this brew is more a Pale Ale than that of a Cream Ale. Perhaps not surprising when they peg it as a contender to OK Springs and Rickards rather than a Shaftsbury Cream Ale or similar such offerings from other local haunts like R&B.

Quite a mild ale that pours surprinsingly flat. 1/2" head quickly gives way to a virtually clean slate, a minute collar and no long term lacing of the glass. The honey hops start to come through on the aroma and flavor after letting the beer sit for awhile, that tend to push this brew towards a Pale Ale/Honey Lager blend rather than the Cream Ale its supposed to be.

Visually, it does mirror the copper/golden colors found in the OK Springs Pale Ale and similar ones like Granville Island. Taste wise though, it really lacks any true characteristics to help make it memorable.
Jan 11, 2003
Big Chief Cream Ale from Mission Springs Brewing Company
Beer rating: 2.24 out of 5 with 4 ratings