Mosaic Pale Ale
City Lights Brewing Co.

Tasted in a snifter from draft at City Lights Brewing Company on December 7, 2019. Notes of mango, lemon, citrus, tropical fruit and stone fruit. Hints of pine and peppers.

 

Aroma is fairly strong, citrus and pine. Very nice and old school APA. After the head recedes a bit, the aroma becomes less sharp and more tropical, mango. Quite nice.

Color is golden yellow, sparse bubbles rising to a short, 1/2 inch, white, creamy head, with not much retention, ending in a cap and ring. Moderate lacing just above the top of the beer.

Initial taste is on the bitter side, with the flavors in the aroma of citrus and bitter and resiny pine, hint of the tropical fruit behind, resulting in a drying of the mouth (I'm using the word to mean actual drying, not the opposite of sweet.) As you drink, the resin moderates a bit, giving an enjoyable typical mosaic hop flavor, tropical fruit.

Feel is medium to thin, with the mouth feel dominated by the bitter resin.

The finish is dry (in the not sweet sense) with bitterness lingering into the aftertaste, and unfortunately, the resin reappears as almost an astringency.

This is an OK at best APA; nice aroma, really good flavor, appropriately bitter, but the resin tending toward astringency component in the finish and aftertaste knocks this beer down to barely tolerable and takes it very much off balance.

 

 

A 12oz. can poured into my City Lights can-glass. 1 1/2" of fluffy pure white foam that slowly settled to 1/2" with a bit of lacing left on the glass.This beer is a hazy copper color with a medium carbonation.
The smell is the citrus and pine aromas.
The taste is a tart grapefruit, it does have a bit of sweetness, then the dry finish.
I have not had many Pale Ales, but I could see how this style beer could become something that is desired. I think I will have a second!

This is Mosaic's first review. Good start (that's high praise from a malt-head.)
From a can as part of a 4 pack bought on a beer run to Kenosha's Woodman's. (Although I read that City Lights recently is distributed in Illinois.)

A pretty orangish Look, but not much else distinguishes its Looks. That changes quickly with how the Mosaic fruits waft up from the glass. Tastes initially seem almost as good, but then the bitter hops start to take over and stick around and make this an average pale. I Had Mosaic with a sandwich with mustard in it... OK, but better to have Mosaic in a session.

My first from City Lights, I went on their website and was impressed with their taproom and brewery (converting a building 120 years old that played a role in Milwaukee's industrial past.) I would like to stop by on my next trip to Milwaukee... which is certain in 2019. In the meantime, City Lights is young, but doing well and helping renew Milwaukee's beer heritage for the next century. Hugs for that.