Moonrise Kingdom
Bluejacket Brewery

 

On cask at Bluejacket in DC. I've got to say, this has got to be one of the best *looking* beers I've had in months. Gorgeous light amber color with that lovely natural head you can really only get from a good cask pull. Expectations were high. The aroma is light to almost barely noticeable at all and the taste is rather bland, with more bitterness than expected. If you want to know what this beer really makes me think of, it's Boddingtons Pub Ale. Take that as a compliment or an insult, it's up to you. (I am of course talking about the can version of Boddingtons, I have not been blessed to have had it on cask yet.) But really, it's almost uncanny how much the flavor reminds me of that.

Pours a light amber color with a modest head that becomes a wispy coverage of bubbles atop the malt-heavy liquid in the glass. Nose is big on the grain bread vibe, with aromas that bring me to almost any small scale brewery I've been to. The mix of malt and a little bit of yeast reminds me of brew days, but definitely in a more finished way. The taste is lightly toasted bread with a slight tang - maybe a hint of tangerine/nectarine marmalade - on the first sip. Oddly, this note comes and goes as I sip the beer; sometimes it comes right out, and other times it melds into the beer on subsequent sips as the grain husk bitterness feeds into a dry grass lean. The finish mixes the toasted malt and grass, producing a slightly earthy vibe. So this definitely brings the malt, but not in a sweet way. As such, the bitterness isn't sharp - it is more of a drift from neutral malt to unsweetened tea.