Czig Meister Orange Cream
Czig Meister Brewing Company

DATE: June 28, 2020... OCCASION: a great summer weekend ends with a refreshing reboot of a beer I had a few years back... GLASSWARE: Hobgoblin pint... first thing to notice: this is lactose infused, which means an opaque, muddy orange body... its white head is bubbly but transitory... punchy orange peel, light wafting vanilla, grapefruit, prune... its malt presents as cracker, with pepper and garden spices--which works into a few of CM's brews--filling in the dimensions of its profile... this comes as refreshing as its predecessor, with a bit more substance than I remember it--its texture is medium-bodied, mature without the fizziness of a cream ale's expectation... mellow on the back end, with enough vibration at the teeth to suggest its hops are alive and well... past those notes, incredibly drinkable and thirst-quenching... for the payoff: orange soda, grapefruit, vanilla, milkshake, white grape, pepper, and mild cracker... agreeable and sippable... this is a nice summer offering, and I am glad they amped up the main ingredients, as the 2018 version was much flatter and more of a soda stand-in than a beer approximation...I will definitely seek this out again this summer...