Orange Cream Ale
Chain Reaction Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

 

i love the concept here, a twist on the standard, somewhat of a creamsicle in theory, a cream ale with orange. the beer is blonde and bright (although some haze comes in from batch to batch on this one), summery for sure, but i think the milk sugar aspect of this is a tad overdone, as its got just a little more residual sugar and body on it than i think is desirable, at least for hot weather pounding. it drowns some of the orange out in taste, although the orange is really up front aromatically. more of a general citrus flavor results than a specifically orange one, but its quite tasty. simple grain bill lets the interesting aspects of the beer do the bulk of the flavoring, which i am fine with. maybe a dry hopping on this would balance out the sugar a little bit, or a dry spicing with some fresh oranges or something, just thinking that they have an awesome base beer, and a killer idea, but it could be tweaked to near summer refreshment perfection. clever and probably likely to improve in future batches.