Thornton Creek
Fish Brewing Company / Fishbowl Brewpub

Thornton Creek on cask is NICE, on reg tap well its good. I has a a malty taste with a nice after taste to it. Finished bitter but goes down smooth. Pours a light honey cilor with a 3/4 inch cloudy white head. I like this SB, a good one and works well with the Smoked Salmon Sandwich or oyster Burger.

Pulled from cask into a shaker and at the brewpub, Thornton Creek is dark copper with a tight, creamy, khaki colored head leaving gorgeous thick, perfectly concentric lace rings all the way down the glass.

Smell is subdued but very nice hops, floral and piny.

Taste has an enjoyable piny hop flavor, a touch grassy, with a very smooth bitterness and mild sweetness. The subtlety, particularly from the cask, is not really my style, but this is a fine beer nevertheless.

Mouthfeel is crisp and dry, and a bit thin of course from the cask conditioning.

Drinkablity is good, as there's just enough taste to satisfy, it's very smooth and went down really easily. That being said, it's not particularly memorable.

Fish’s website labels this interchangeably as both an ESB and a pale ale. My server described it to me as a medium bodied bitter. Sounds like another case of blurred semantics though strictly speaking the original gravity (1.056) and ABV (5.0%) adhere to the category of an ESB. It is, in the truest sense, real ale.

Fish did a great public service in presenting Thornton Creek in cask-conditioned form this winter. Their efforts achieved a brew with an immediate and flavorful, floral hop aroma. The aroma alone is delicate, artistic, almost playful. My imperial pint was initially pumped to a turbulent aeration, producing a beer of deep sorrel color with spotty lace and a velvety, sensuous head. The mouthfeel was corresponding soft as goose down.

Thornton Creek has a gracefully subdued flavor profile, feathery in its hop composition with just an echo of malts. It is corruptibly drinkable. A portion of the sales of this ale go towards the restoration of salmon habitat in Thornton Creek, a small creek in the Lake City neighborhood of north Seattle.

This is a fabulous beer. You wish you had friends as good as this.