Tasting Room Series: Black Pale Ale
Boulevard Brewing Co.

 

 

Tried the Black Pale Ale at a buddy's house. It poured a nearly opaque black with tan head that did not leave much lace. The scent was a good mix of roast and pine. The taste followed the scent but also had hints or orange like citrus. The Mouthfeel was lighter in body with good carbonation. Overall it's decent and worth a shot.

 

 

This one pours a midnight black with a tan head that is rich and long lived. There is nice lacing down the glass that eventually disappears mostly.

The nose is Coffee, peppery hops and apples with some bread in the nose.

The taste is rather bitter and unbalanced in the hops. There is also notes of caramel and nutmeg. Not to impressive.

The moutfeel is a tad bit watery.

Overall an OK beer, but not a great beer.

 

 

 

Look - OK... I'm going to give this high marks on look. I'm not a big fan of darker beers, but I love the way they look. This one pours a beautiful dark (extremely dark... almost black) brown, with a little bit of red glow. The head is beautifully thick and lingers.

Smell - Odd to say the least. Smells roasted, yet pale. Kind of goes with the territory I guess, but it seemed more disorienting and confusing than anything else.

Taste - Much like the smell, exceptionally confusing... which is good, because I think that's what they were after. I mean the bottle even says "what sort of dark art is this?" Well, if you wanted to confuse and disorient your audience... Job well done. I mean Black Ale is one thing, but to try and pump up the Pale aspects of this hybrid... just read the Transformers comparison in the "Overall" part of this review.

Feel - Very "meh." It looks carbonated (rising bubbles and such). It smells carbonated (given that it is able to push it's odd complexity to the nose). It even tastes carbonated... but it feels like water... "Meh"

Overall - This beer has no soul. It's like watching the first Transformers movie and realizing it doesn't know what it wants to be. Transformers purported to be something epic, but the level of stupidity involved detracted from the overall enjoyably... same thing here (whereas G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra knew it was stupid and embraced it, and thus came out the superior film... even if the average movie goer didn't pick up on it)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smells nice, but the taste is roasted with no hops at all. It is also watery and flat, which does not help the beer at all. The tasting room beers I've had have all been misses.

Muted flavour profile. No one-two punch of hops and roast.

High C (3.00) / AVERAGE