West Coast Pale Ale
Ravens Brewing Company

 

650ml bottle - another craft brewery from that city on the Trans Canada, Abbotsford. Oh, and a beer that pairs well with cheese, pizza, fish 'n chips, and burgers, you say? Wow, who knew?

This beer pours a hazy, medium copper amber colour, with a teeming tower of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly ecru head, which leaves some stellar randomly sudsy lace around the glass as it lazily sinks out of sight.

It smells of semi-sweet, grainy and bready caramel malt, a twinge of free-range ashiness, mildly tannic tea bags, muddled citrus and pome fruity esters, and some understated leafy, weedy, and dead floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy pale malt, a lessened caramel sweetness, still difficult to parse domestic citrus rind, more weird spiced black tea notes, and a steady earthy, leafy, and herbal verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its palate-satisfying frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and generally smooth, with a wee airy creaminess seeping in as things warm up a tad around here. It finishes well off-dry, with some hefty malt, and lingering citrusy/forest floor hops galore.

Overall, this is a more or less well-wrought version of the sub-style, as the west-coast metrics come across large and in charge. A bit on the sweet side, perhaps, but that's all right, I'm still digging this one, as the hops are fresh and frisky, but not particularly bitter. Good stuff.