Orange Chocolate Blonde Ale
Ellicottville Brewing Co.

 

 

 

On tap at Caston & Main Brew Yard into pint glass. Pours slightly hazy golden orange color with a small head with spotty lacing. Aromas of big orange juice, vanilla, and milk chocolate. Great dessert nose. Taste of big orange juice/peels, vanilla, milk chocolate, white bread, pepper, pine, herbal, floral, grass. Medium pine/herbal/spicy bitter and light fruit tang/tart finish. Medium plus carb and lt med body. Fairly crisp clean refreshing finish. Balanced grainy malt and sticky hop mouthfeel. Lingering hop drying, no astringent flavors. Very vibrant orange flavors. Minimal warming 7.1%. Spot on American style blonde. Authentic fruit flavors.

 

Finally getting to try one of theirs, bumming a beer on eclipse day. This one pours an amber color, very bubbly, with a good finger of white head that fades for the most part rather rapidly. My first idea of the nose is that of the creamsicle flavor that has suddenly become ubiquitous everywhere. Tastewise, I get that sort of Tootsie roll sort of chocolate underlying the orange flavoring. Ends a touch bitter, as in orange zest. Pretty full for a blonde ale, at least from the ones I can recall. Very carbonated, as described above. A touch sweet, perhaps a little artificial like mainstream American chocolate tends to be.

It's not bad at all - in fact, the flavor is exactly as the can advertises. To be honest, orange isn't a first choice to me - can't help but imagine it with raspberry or something, but that's not a good reason to take away points.

Pours a clear orange. Light foam. Orange aroma. Big chocolate and orange body. Lightly sweet. Not syrupy. Not really my kind of flavor for a blonde ale but not too bad.

Golden yellow with a 1/2" white head, which dissipates. Light lacing. Suspended yeast particles.

Aroma of strong orange, chocolate.

Taste follows nose: Orange zest, chocolate, that's it.

Light to medium body, light carbonation. Semisweet finish.

Tastes like a Whitman's chocolate. Nice.

Orange Chocolate Blonde Ale pours a bronze color, with a small lacing head, that hangs around, with some sediment. Big chocolate and orange notes. Flavor is filled with sweet milk chocolate and sweet candy like orange flavors. Good body and feel. Overall, strong on the fruit and chocolate flavors, sweeter.

 

16oz can served in a Samuel Smith pint glass. Canned on 11/11/20 08:56 LV140

Appearance: Mostly clear orange-gold with a bit of haze to it. Initial 1/8" white foam that slowly died back. Thick sheets and strands of lacing that very slowly slid back down the glass.

Smell: Definite orange aroma - somewhere between orange juice and orange oil. There is some underlying sweetness with nose as well, which at times gives this beer the smell of the taste of an orange creamsicle.

Taste: Tastes a lot like the label - chocolate orange. Up front is some chocolate which comes across as tootsie roll-like, then the orange. Some lingering citrus like bitterness (like orange zest) at the finish.

Mouthfeel: Good thickness and carbonation. A little sticky on the teeth.

Overall / Drinkability: Certainly truth in advertising with this beer. No doubt about the aroma and flavors, and it certainly looks like a Blonde ale. But..it's a bit on the artificial side. I think I would have preferred a 12oz rather than a 16oz serving of this as an interesting thing to try, but I'm finding it hard to finish the glass. It's good, but not great.

16 oz can

Pours clear golden, head retains as a lacing.

Aroma of orange citrus, biscuit, and caramel.

Flavor is of biscuit, candied orange, maybe a bit of chocolate syrup, and a grassy bitter finish.

Light, thin body, tingly carbonation on the tongue.

This tastes not good. This has to be a bad or old can. I can't believe anyone would try this and think its palatable. The orange flavor is harsh and artificial, the chocolate is very faint, and it has a bitterness that clashes terribly with the rest of the flavor. Kind of on the thin side for 7%. Pour is fine but uninteresting. Honestly it has been getting better as I drink. The chocolate is more detectable as it warms and the bitterness does fade a bit. I'm going to make a note to retry this because I am pretty certain this can is has been on the shelf too long or something and I want to give it a fair shake fresh. I can see what they were going for and it should be better than this, so for now the rating is a placeholder and slightly "curved" based on my assumption of a bad can.