Kaleidoscope Golden Strong Ale
Devil's Canyon Brewing Company

 

 

 

22oz bottle - a Belgian-style strong golden ale, brewed with honey and golden raspberries.

This beer pours a mostly clear, medium golden amber colour, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and somewhat fizzy bone-white head, which leaves a bit of random coral reef lace around the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of fleshy raspberries, gritty and grainy pale malt, clover honey, slightly phenolic Belgian yeast, some generic light orchard fruitiness, and very subtle earthy, leafy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is grainy and bready cereal malt, spiked raspberry juice, honeyed crackers, an ephemeral yeastiness, further bruised apple and pear fruity notes, and some plain leafy, musty, and perfumed floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its structurally supportive frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and generally smooth, with perhaps a minor creaminess seeping in after a spell. It finishes well off-dry, the sweet raspberries and base Belgian ale both exhibiting some lingering chutzpah.

Overall - this is a pleasant enough, fruity old-world golden ale, with the north of 15-proof wowee sauce quotient well masked. I especially appreciate the raspberry flavours, in that they persist, not wafting off after the aroma, which is sadly typical. Good, good stuff!