Cali Common
Hearthstone Brewery

355ml can - this sure looks a lot like the long preexisting Common Man listing, just sayin'.

This beer pours a clear, medium copper amber colour, with four fingers of puffy, rocky, and somewhat chunky bone-white head, which leaves some sparse snow rime lace around the glass as it lazily sinks out of sight.

It smells of toasted breakfast cereal, gritty and grainy pale malt, some mild earthy yeastiness, a bit of bar-top nuts, and some plain herbal, spicy, and floral hop bitters. The taste is bready and biscuity caramel malt, a minor pome fruitiness, ethereal lager yeast esters, and more understated earthy, musty, and floral hop bitterness.

The carbonation is quite tame in its bored-seeming frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and generally smooth, with a wee airy creaminess evolving as things warm up a tad out of the ol' basement bar refrigerator. It finishes well off-dry, the big malt pretty much the only game in town as we mosey on out.

Overall - this comes across as about par for the course for the style, i.e. way better than Anchor Steam, but still nothing that I would go out of my way to get another serving of. Simple, sweet, and easy to drink, so check it out if that's your sort of thing.

Poured from a 473ml can. SRM 11,33 IBU
Hearthstone calls this Gateway Beer a Ale using Lager yeast.
A: Pours a clear gold amber with a thin white head and minor lacing. Rather flat looking.
S: A spicy nose with bread and hops.
T: More of a pale ale with hops. A hybrid i suppose.
F: Clean and good balance could use a bit more carbonation.
O: Pretty good all round beer nothing special.

 

I am not usually a big fan of cali commons but this one was really good. Nice pilsner malt flavours and aroma balanced by a firm bitterness. Mild fruitiness. Refreshing, easy drinking, flavourful but not in your face, would make a great beer to help introduce someone to the craft beer world with.