Show Me Your Bloobs
Gem State Brewing

goofy name, a blueberry vanilla cream ale, one of the many flavored beers they are serving up here this summer. this one comes across a little overdone and inauthentic on the fruit to me, but its not gross or anything, just a bit much for my tastes. no color from the tap is the first weird thing, blueberries are generally pretty high pigment, why is this just blonde? lightly hazy, a touch thick for a cream ale, but this is the consequence likely of cali creamin, everyone around here expects the base beer to be sugary, loaded with lactose and vanilla, and nothing like a traditional cream ale, so i dont blame these guys for this, its a product of their environment, but boy have real cream ales really gone extinct here! blueberry character smells and tastes like the stuff dennys has or used to have to put on belgian waffles, not unpleasant at all, but also pretty far from an actual blueberry, and the vanilla and attendant sweetness only exacerbate that, this is short of diabetic but its pretty sugary, and that limits it a lot for me. lactose is unnecessary with the vanilla, i like the lightly toasted grain thing at the core of this, which is needed and keeps it beery enough, and it doesnt hang around forever on the palate which i am thankful for. some body, some sugar cookie character, and no tang, tannins, or skin influence that i would expect from actual blueberries. this should be better than it is, but i am definitely not the target audience for this, and it seems like others were really digging it when i was in, so whatever. a beer just for fun, which is what beer should be...