Rooftop Pineapple Mint Pale Ale
Monument City Brewing Company

This DelMarVa (+ DC) adventure of mine has morphed into my latest CANQuest (tm) focus! I really had no idea that MaryCANd, especially, was putting out so much beer. 8=O It seems as though every time I feel like I a close, some more beers from that area Pop! up from out of hiding to surprise me. Further, I am back to work so I CANnot keep up the pace that I set during the Christmas/Winter Break. 8=( On top of all of that, even New Beer Sunday is off-limits due to prior CANmitments. 8=( Inna meantime, a shout-out to my local, in-person trader, @tone77 who recently dropped this off for me.

From the CAN: "Summer Seasonal"; "The summer isn't complete without a cold beer, a grill and a group of friends on a rooftop in Baltimore. Cheers!"; "Style: Pale Ale[;] Malt: American 2 Row, Caramel, Wheat[;] Hops: Nugget, Citra, El Dorado[;] IBU: 35"; "'Reach For a Monument'".

I gotta say, I am intrigued by this one. Sure, I'm drinking it out of season, but it seems like it might brighten this cold, dreary morning in the face of an impending Winter storm system. I Crack!ed the vent & it revealed itself to be quite active, foaming up through the vent. I then beCAN a slow, gentle C-Line Glug into the awaiting glass. It foamed nicely there, also, forming just under two fingers of dense, foamy, rocky, bone-white head with excellent retention, leaving behind great lacing as it slowly fell. Color was a gorgeous Golden-Amber (SRM = > 5, < 7) with NE-quality clarity, like liquid sunshine in my glass! This roused The Gelt Gang of Midas, Mammon & Croesus from their slumber on my couch, where they had fallen asleep following last night's (mostly college) hockey marathon, to come running into my kitchen for a taste. Nose was REALLY minty, very fresh, very cool with a light underpinning of caramel & pineapple. Mmm. Mouthfeel was medium. The taste was fully imbued with mint and I would say peppermint from its intensity, with the pineapple and caramel providing a nice CANterpoint. Mmm. Finish was cool, dry & very minty. Mmm. Now comes the problem with reviewing to style & not to taste - it was nothing like the style's guide-on bearer, SNPA, which makes it slightly problematic. I try to make up for it in the "Overall" category, which allows me to rate to personal taste in a much more subjective, as opposed to objective, way. YMMV.

Cloudy orange colored. Sweet pineapple/orange nose. Thin head. Initial astringency and hop bitterness followed by tapering bitterness and more of the mint coming through. Not as much pineapple in the flavor as in the nose; some pith in the finish, which is a bit dry. I had hoped for more pineapple and mint. —Reviewed 2017/09/08

 

Poured from a 12 oz. can. Has a bright golden color with a 1/2 inch head. Smell is of pineapple, some mint. Taste is of spearmint, malts, little of the pineapple that was abundant in the aroma, no bitterness. Feels medium bodied in the mouth and overall is a unique and decent beer.