Triangulate Citrus Pale Ale
Pyramid Breweries, Inc.

Golden amber in color. Somewhat hazy, with a thin, bubbly head. Streak lacing. The aroma is faint citrus, biscuit malt, and yeast. The flavor is lemons, grass, and herbal notes. The aftertaste is on the tart side, and the beer reminds me of a hefeweizen to an extent. A bit more maltiness and hops bitterness, but the lemon zest gives it this quality I believe. Not horrific, but I doubt I would buy another of these.

Smells like a weak margarita. Definitely lime. Taste reminds me of the old Baskin Robbins flavor Daquiri Ice. Moderately tart. Wierdly fruity and the bitter edge tastes medicinal. Crisp and spritzy in a pleasant way.

I'm not sure I'd call this a Pale Ale. It's more of a "flavored brew," like a LIme-A-Rita or some such. Still, it's clean and quaffable. A hint of bitterness in the aftertaste. This is a North American Breweries, Inc. product. From the 22 oz bottle purchased at The Market in Anacortes.

22 oz bottle

Pours a big two finger, white head into my willi glass. I can hear a small fizzing. Somewhat pillowy. Maybe just a tad soapy looking. Body is a slightly dark orange, with some gold hues. Clarity is quite high, and carbonation looks very high as well. Retention is slightly above average, and far better than I was expecting when I heard the fizzing. Overall, not a bad looking beer at all, so far.

Nose is cheap malt, adjuncts, corn. Maybe some DMS. Smallest bit of citrus. Overall, not good.

On the first sip, this tasted pretty bad. It’s sour up front, with a plain and characterless hop bitterness – which almost seems itself watered down. I get lemon, which would largely explain the sourness. As I’m drinking it, it’s starting to taste more like a beer. I think the problem now is that these hops are just coming through super lemon-y, I suppose that’s exactly what they are supposed to taste like, but this is over the top. I still stand by the bitterness being characterless, just because it tastes like lemon, doesn’t mean they taste like hops. There is not authenticity to the hop profile, just bitterness, and lemon, I am strongly assuming they use flavoring for this pungent of a lemon flavor, especially considering I can’t taste any other hops characteristics. I mean, it’s not as bad as I initially thought, but it’s just a huge blast of somewhat offensive lemon, some bitterness, and not much else. I do taste a hint of DMS hiding in here, behind all this pungent sour and bitterness. It’s not terrible I suppose, I can drink it, but it seems like they are trying to compensate by throwing in a boat load of lemon flavor to hide some other things. I will give credit and say that the lemon is not a sweet lemon, it’s dry and bitter. I will also say that I’m not sure I’ve had a lemon drop hopped beer, but I can’t possibly imagine the lemon is this intense from just the hops, that’s not how hops usually work – also, it’s not a single hop, simply dry hopped. There is zero malt character to back this up, none. Again, I assume the malt profile is quite bad – from what I smelled on the nose, and they are trying to hide it.

The mouthfeel is a little odd, the carbonation is not nearly as high as I was imagining. It’s entirely possible that the carbonation just jumped out as soon as I cracked the bottle, and by the time I got half way down the glass, it’s all disappeared. Honestly, now, it’s a little under carbonated. Body is medium-thin, average I suppose for the style. Overall, not great.

The drinkability is good enough I guess. Considering I’m being literally punched in the face with lemon extract, I can still put this down without much fuss, it’s only 5.5%

Overall, I don’t know, this is a weird beer. When I think flavoring, I think sweet. So, at least kept it tasting more on the side of a beer, than a cupcake. With that being said, it was far too one dimensional, not very authentic, and too in your face. The aroma also revealed some of the things that the lemon couldn’t hide. Overall, very sub par.

Side note, I had poured the second half of this bottle into a different glass. For some reason the lemon was much more subdued, and as expected, that showed the low quality grain bill, and overall lack of flavor. Any way you cut it, not a great beer.

Somehow, the appearance on this was quite nice. The retention was definitely above average. Lacing was nice and thick from top to bottom. Really a good looking beer. I should have simply looked at it for 45 minutes instead.

 

22oz bottle - so the citrus part of this beer's equation is provided to us today (sadly without closed captioning) by Lemondrop™ hops!

This beer pours a clear, bright medium golden yellow colour, with three fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and yet somewhat fizzy off-white head, which leaves some splattered and sudsy islet lace around the glass as it quickly dissipates.

It smells of semi-sweet, bready and doughy pale malt, those marshmallow 'peeps' that are soon to be everywhere, benign pink bubblegum notes, lemon confectionery, and some tame earthy, weedy, and dead floral green hop bitters. The taste is bready and wet crackery pale malt, thin lemon tart essences, an ephemeral yeastiness, some fading Bazooka Joe candy character, and more understated leafy, earthy, and mildly herbal verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its workaday frothiness, the body a so-so middleweight, and mostly smooth, nothing really interfering here, as such. It finishes a tad off-dry, the lemon kind of disappearing, while the meek-ish malt keeps on keepin' on.

Overall, this is an agreeable enough offering, the Lemondrop™ hops doing a way better job than they did the last time that I encountered them. Nothing groundbreaking, but worthy of sessioning if you like just a little lemon in your otherwise generic pale ale. And sorry, Susan, this isn't nearly as interesting as the label made it seem to you.