Mo’veza
Alvarado Street Brewery

Canned on 10/14/20; consumed on 12/7/20

Pours a crystal-clear, pale straw gold body capped with two fingers of rocky, soapy, off-white foam; decent head retention leaves chunks of airy cap, a bubbly ring of collar, and layers of bulky, soapy lacing around the glass.

Aroma opens with notes of wet grass contrasting sweet cereal grains before fruity hops, kaffir lime leaf, and rubbery white wine grape over the middle; suggestions of woody potpourri over middle develop into a back end as apricot, straw, and a spritzy minerality highlight the close.

Taste brings straw and brighter white wine grape upfront as bready yeast and touches of honeysuckle meet juicy, floral orange peel over the mid-palate; flaky cereal grain rounds into the back end, where moss, wet grass, and apricot zest comprise the finish.

Mouthfeel features a crisp, light body accompanied by a fluffy, higher-end carbonation inflating over the mid-palate to a back end of lightly juicy hops and flaky malt grit; the finish is relaxed with a wispy of hoppy bitterness.

The hops in this IPL are casually bright, accented, and varied in expression, setting the malt profile firmly in the backdrop with more subdued, sweeter grains; while not the most balanced the style has to offer, there's a definitively unpretentious presentation of dominant hops atop a fleeting lager base that leaves this one perpetually approachable.

 

Recent drop from AJ’s Soquel.
L: clear gold , fairly bubbly. Soapy head with lacing.
S: Berries, bread, wine, little rubber note.
T: melons, berries, sweet, resiny finish. Little bitterness.
F: slick and medium/light.
Overall: pretty light and harmless. Mosaic is ok but not my favorite hop flavors by far.

Transparent pale golden color. Foam is coarse and thin, disappears quickly. The beer bubbles like a spring. It smells hoppy, with licorice tea sweet smell, pears, honey and chamomile floral smell. The beer is medium body, starts with a banana and pineapple ester aroma which is very lovely. That ester fruity is something you can find in a maibock which sometimes are more caramel like, but this banana is not baked. The beer shows a floral citrusy hops character. After the banana fruity, I get the citrusy aroma like mandarin and peels. The aftertaste is very clean, my mouth is full of citrus and floral hops aroma. The beer is well balanced from the beginning to the end, it’s doesn’t feels sweet or bitter. This is a surprisingly good west coast lager. It’s light but full of flavor. I get the feeling when I first time drink the California kölch from Magnolia brewing, it’s full of the malts, yeast and hops aromas and beyond any single character of them. It’s a very hoppy lager, but neither too bitter nor too heavy. It’s chilled and smooth like a fine lager, but also have the German lager’s bold ester bomb, you can also tell the not-so-bitter citrus hippiness is a very American thing. What a nice invention ;-) Love it!