Single Hop Centennial
Medicine Hat Brewing Company

 

355ml can - what I presume is a pale ale, single-hopped with Centennial in the boil, as well as dry-hopping.

This beer pours a clear, bright medium copper amber colour, with three fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat creamy off-white head, which leaves some snow ridge pattern lace around the glass as it gently slips away.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, muddled domestic citrus rind, a bit of biscuity toffee, mild stone fruit esters, and some heady leafy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, toffee squares, bitter and estery florals, a touch of wet soapiness, mild hard water flinty notes, and more zingy leafy, earthy, and musty verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its workaday frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and mostly smooth, just a touch of that floral acridity maybe not playing well with others here. It finishes off-dry, the cereal malts doing well to linger, along with, yes, that near-soapy bitterness.

Overall - well, the Centennial varietal is certainly represented here, and it's clear why it normally gets blended with something more robust and agreeable like Cascade or Columbus, or a host of others. This one is just too edgy, and not in a particularly good way. Bring on the Mosaic!