Fresh Hopped Pale Ale
Fernie Brewing Co.

 

 

 

I had this on-tap at the Mission Tap House in Kelowna. I was surprised how good it was! It's really unfortunate that we don't see more fresh hops on tap here.

Golden-bronze with a nice head that leaned a lace.

Good aroma, though not as prominent as some.

Light, but really nice hop flavour with a well-balanced bitterness... Pine, weed, citrus rind.

Moderate body has a slight acidity and slightly drying, crisp finish. Well constructed.

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor store - thanks, Samuel, for making a better effort with your penmanship this time around (it must be all that recent schoolin', eh?).

This beer pours a slightly hazy, pale golden yellow colour, with three fingers of puffy, rocky, and bubbly ecru head, which leaves some layered chunky lace around the glass as it sort of evenly subsides.

It smells faintly of gritty and grainy pale malt, a touch of musty yeastiness, timid domestic citrus esters, and some generic leafy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is crackery and grainy pale malt, ethereal biscuity caramel notes, still hard to differentiate citrus rind(s), and more wan leafy, earthy, and kind of grassy (of the fresh-cut variant) hoppiness.

The bubbles are adequate in their basically supportive frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, just a touch of verdant acridity taking things down a peg here, as such. It finishes trending dry, the crackery nature of the malt merging with the so-called 'fresh' hops to make this an apt ongoing concern.

Overall, this is not a bad brew, by any stretch of the imagination, but the seasonal, harvest-time character is very less than evident. Given that this brewery doesn't make an APA on a full time basis (although it could just be The Griz underneath it all), that may inform the matter, but I am quite ready to drop it, and just enjoy the rest of this big-ass serving, in a non-judgemental way. Yeah, that.