Happy Camper
Nelson Brewing Company

 

355ml can - an 'organic summer ale', which I take to mean bland blonde ale, but we shall see, we shall see.

This beer pours a clear, medium copper amber colour, with a teeming tower of puffy, rocky, and chunky ecru head, which leaves some pretty stellar spattered snow rime lace around the glass as it lazily sinks out of sight.

It smells of semi-sweet, bready and doughy caramel malt, some mixed orange, red grapefruit, and pome fruitiness, a hint of wayward yeast, and surprisingly, um, present leafy, weedy, and grassy green hop bitters. The taste is grainy and bready caramel malt, a touch of biscuity toffee, still muddled domestic fruit bowl esters, and more level-headed earthy, weedy, and musky floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is average in its palate-coating frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and mostly smooth, nothing really daring to interfere with the mandated good time here. It finishes off-dry, the sturdy malt sort of tangling with the lingering generic hop bitterness.

Overall, this is certainly not what I was expecting - a veritable session ale (read: hoppy pale ale), one which is engaging, and very easy to drink, which I suppose is the whole point. I'm not in the woods, or a campsite right now, but you could indeed refer to me by the titular name.