Golden Leaf
City Brewing Company

 

This beer pours a cloudy burnt orange color. The head is small, and recedes quickly into nothing. The aroma is of honey and caramel, but is rather rancid. The taste is like the aroma. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, with very low carbonation. Overall, this is a bad beer that I will not be drinking again.

Poured into a standard pint. Bottle says "First Brewed 2006".

Pours a dark straw with a nice head that recedes to sticky lace.

Aroma is roasted malt and light hops.

Taste is metallic honey and sour grain. Blood and copper. Brown sugar and molasses. Cloying sweetness and a distinct lack of hop character. The little hops come through on the back after the cloying adjunct flavor recedes.

Smelled good and looked good, didn't taste good. Way too sweet and metallic and lacking in the hops for a "pale ale".

Cloudy and murky dark gold in color. Wispy head. Nose smells like melted snow. This beer comes across more like a winter warmer to me but without the spices. Very simple flavor that is consistent with the nose. Not a bad beer, but nothing to scream about. Melted snow with mild hops is probably the best and fairest description I can offer. I would call it a C.

A- Pours a nice 1 finger fluffy head that slowly recedes into a nice cap with decent lacing. The body is a nice hazy amber.

S- Nice malty backbone with some honey evident some light hopiness. Really not much here..

T- My first couple sips were greeted with a huge cloying honey/malt twang that almost made me pour it out right then and there, however, after a few more sips, I found the twang to lessen quite a bit. After that I got a more balanced honey malt with a medium dry finish with some residual sweetness. Not much here and with the original twang.. ouch.

M- low/med carbonation is ok, finish is ok.

D- because of the oddity of this beer, I wouldn't even go near calling it terribly drinkable. Give it a shot, but don't expect to much.

Purchased as part of "build-your-own-six-pack" at local grocer. Medium, long lasting head on a cloudy amber body. Nothing too distinct in the smell, although on the tongue it features a slightly sweet, slightly bitter taste. Little aftertaste I assume is the honey, which isn't great but not too bad. Not nearly as thick of a feeling I prefer in wheats. Ok, not great, but not bad.

A very average beer in my opinion. I got it because it was three bucks at the Cork and Barrel near where I work. It is a decent wheat beer, with a sweet nose that got more fragrant as it warmed to room temp. The big plus is that it became a beer my girlfriend really enjoys. Too bad it's retired. I finally find a cheap beer for her and it's pulled from production.

Couldn't resist the $2.99/6 pk close out at the West Side Liquor in Willmar, Minnesota. It just didn't sell and I bet if I took the rest of it in one swoop I could have it for $2.50 or less. I have long admired the fact that somebody could keep the old brewery in LaCrosse, WI going, and drink City Brewery products with regularity. This item though, it appears to be dying a slow death and to tell you the truth the reason is is that it is no big deal! RIP!!

I won this brew, along with 2 others, in a raffle I entered at work. I entered the raffle to support the United Way, and the United Way is now giving back. Thank You.

Appearance - It says on the label that it's brewed with honey. After pouring it I can see the resemblance. It has a deep yellow, almost orange hazy color to it. The head is white and starts out about 3/4 of an inch tall but fades quick.

Smell - The sweet scent of a wheat beer. This one doesn't have that strong soapy aroma that so many do. This is a bit warmer and sweeter.

Taste - The flavor is mild with not much really going on. It has the malt flavor and what might be a honey sweetness as well. Although, that could also just be my imagination.

Mouthfeel - Very smooth to the lips, on to the tongue, gums and all the way down. This is a true pleasure to feel in your mouth. I've thought that since my first sip.

~ The feel of this beer is amazing. It really makes the beer worth having. I would definitely try this on tap and will certainly recommend it to friends. Nice work on this one LaCrosse.

Got this beer as part of a beer of the month club offering. Chose a particularly hot day to drink it.

Pours a beautiful, slightly hazy orange with a thick cream-colored head and sheets of persistent lacing. Mild citrus in the nose. Extremely effervescent with gobs of tiny bubbles rising from the sides and bottom of the glass. Smooth, mildly sweet taste with a hint of lemon but without significant hop bitterness. Extremely refreshing and drinkable Summer beer.

This is a light flavored but exceptionally smooth wheat ale that's an absolutely perfect thirst quencher. I wish it were more readily available in California.

Idk if this is the original batch, and if its made more commonly now, but i picked it up at a woodmans in madison yesterday

A- Had a clear orangey yellow with a medium head, however it faded quickly
S- malt scents with the expected wheat, can note the honey as well.
T- a sweet wheat flavor throughout with a light honey, could use more wheat on it to make it a 'wheat beer' but its a nice light wheat ale
M- smooth light body with a slightly sharp carbonation
D- its pretty smooth beer however it wasnt very wheaty and surprized me, but its a decent beer

Pours a nice golden color with a white head that fades really fast.

Slighty spicy, maybe honey smell too it but not much else.

Lots of carbonation that rolls around on the tongue but afterwards there really isn't much flavor at all. I'm not impressed with this beer. Very little malt flavor, virtually no hop presence at all. That's about it. Tastes more like a light lager than a wheat beer. Not in style at all.

I wouldn't recommend this as a good beer to drink. Maybe to try just once but not to spend more money on.

Pours a hazey copper-gold in color, with an off-white head of short duration and with minimal lacing. A bit of yeast left in the bottle afterwards - interesting. Wheat and cereal grain on the nose, heavier on the wheat. It's worth mentioning that the notes of citrus (lemon/orange) and yeast are tangy/sour and inviting on this hot spring day. Tangy-yeasty + biscuity malt on the first sip, along with some lingering dryness . . . the honey? Much better balance here than what I'd expected -a friend of mine who seems to like *all* beer recently told me "Golden Leaf is good!" after he'd sampled it at the brewery. Lingering citrus notes after the first sip? Nice. Fruity on the second sip, with very light berries, light citrus, and more wheat. The honey seems to add a nice texture here, adding a creamy complexion to the mid-weight body. More light yeasty funkiness is apparent in the aromatics about midway through the glass, and there's a slightly metallic bitterness that begins to show through as it warms. Nearly room temperature now (about 70) and it's losing the carbonation and crispness it had after I first poured it (obviously), but is still flavorful and thirst-slaking, if fuller in body than I typically like in this heat. Very light notes of bananas (no cloves, thanks) as I finish the glass. Good drinkability, too. Altogether it's not a bad beer . . . of course it ain't Oberon (or Sunshine, or even HoneyWeiss, thank God), but what you have here -and considering the fact that it's available in a can- makes for a great option in the summer heat. A worthy effort from a brewery that don't get enough love . . . I'll give it a second try if I can find it in a can the next time I'm out playing disc golf.

Appearance: Dark gold with a thin head. Lots of irregular particles floating around in the beer.

Smell: Wheaty.

Taste: Toasted bread with a touch of sweetness. Drink it quick; later tastes were a little nasty--a little green apple sourness.

Drinkability: The fact that you have to throw this down quick before it starts getting ugly is not good.

I think this is City Brewery's answer to Leinie's Honey Weiss, tastes just like it for the first couple swigs. But if you let this get a little warmer it gets bad quickly.

Cloudy pale orange/apricot...sizeable, staying, bone-white head.

Aroma: surprisingly little here. Aroma's usually one of my favorite parts of a wheat beer, but there's nothing going on. a little sour, a touch grainy, slightly soft and wheaty, but not much to recommend it.

Taste: wet, wheaten, ...and drab. Drinkable, but dull. No pop, no zing, but watery, which is what some folks like, so, bless their hearts, let 'em have it.
Some citric taste does linger a while, but it's a halfhearted affair.

I'd drink another if
I had to, but not a beer I'd pay for again.

I picked up this as part of a City Brewery
sample pack.

City Brewery's Golden Leaf pours out a rocky
head over a cloudy honey colored brew. The
nose is primarily malt and yeast with a whiff of
something sour and vinous way in the back. It
has a very strong wheat bisquit flavor and an
echo of honey sweetness the label says it was
brewed with. Mouthfeel is thin but tingly. There's
a very mellow, subdued hop aftertaste. I'm not
too sure about the alcohol by volume but I suspect
it's more than 5%. This actually a pretty decent
brew.

Bold sunflower gold that is as clear as a pealing bell, despite the fact that it's supposed to be unfiltered (the final pour adds a fine haze). Variously sized bubbles zip up to a frothy head of yellowed bone white that doesn't look as if it has enough stickiness to generate much lace. A few soap sudsy scraps is about it.

The can states that Golden Leaf is brewed with honey, but I couldn't have gathered that from the nose. It's short on both power and personality. Not much in the way of malt or hops or honey or... anything really. Let's hope it's more pizzazy on the palate.

Actually this is decent beer. It starts like most other run-of-the-mill APWAs, but with more than a touch of honeyish sweetness that pulls it into the average range (barely). There's still quite a bit of graininess, although I'd have guessed barley rather than wheat. A certain lightness in the mouth is consisent with a generous portion of wheat malt however.

Despite the lightness of the body, the sugar from the honey gives the beer an underlying slickness that I find appealing. I can't decide if I'd like more bubbles or fewer. More I guess; the mouthfeel could use a little excitement.

Golden Leaf was released in June of this year and was brewed to commemorate La Crosse's sesquicentennial (150th anniversary). In a newspaper article in the La Crosse Tribune from last month, the brewery announced their next canned beer, Oktoberfest USA Amber Ale, and also stated that sales of Golden Leaf are going well and that they're considering releasing it on a year-round basis. Eh, I could take it or leave it.