One Planet Ale
Sand Creek Brewing Company

This pours a clear amber color with a fizzy off-white head. The aroma is a simple mix of malts and barley. The taste is fairly bold in barley and oats that delivers a very grainy taste. The texture is full but yet drinks quite well. Not too bad, but it could use some work and improvement.

 

 

16oz pour on-tap at re-pete's in black river falls Wisconsin

look is a murky brown blonde hybrid, minimal head. smell is very light, I pick up some light sweetness and mild skunk. taste is better, lemon and honey, almost a hybrid of a shandy and a summer ale. feel is mildly astringent.

 

 

Reviewed from Notes.

A. A darker-end Pilsner straw color with very little head, almost no retention time at all, and no lacing.

S. I can smell honey and a light wheat malt right off the bat but I am struggling to find the telltale musty scent of a rye malt in there as is advertised by the label, nor can I smell any hopping.

T. Semi-bland but not as bland as something like a BMC would be. Vague sweetness just sort of flops around in the mouth and tapers off awkwardly. My central disappointment with this beer is that I was really hoping to be able to distinguish each of the successive grain types listed on the label, and that is just flat out not happening. Instead, it tastes like a generic muddled multi-grain cocktail and I can't pick anything especially memorable or discrete out of the flavor at any particular stage of the sip...

M. Adequate carbonation, medium light thickness just ever-so-slightly too hefty for me to consider this one a good "lawnmower beer." If you -really- wanted to, you could session it I suppose...

 

 

Served in a Gale Sayers shaker pint glass.

The label on this thing kinda looked interesting, so I figured I'd give it a shot tonight. It pours a clear bronze topped by a half-finger of relatively short-lived off-white foam. The nose comprises dusty biscuit, slathered with honey, and mild grass. The taste brings in more of the same, along with some light orange zest and a touch of rye bread. The body is a hefty light, with a light moderate carbonation and a generally wet feel. Overall, a pretty boring beer, nothing bad, really, just nothing that good, either. Wouldn't necessarily mind downing a few without thinking about them further, but that'd be about it.

They have some smart, talented, & skilled people at Sand Creek, so I don't know why they released this beer. Maybe thinking tree huggers or tourists don't know good beer? Anyway, this one poured with a very short lived, off whlte small head that quickly settled down to almost none and no lace. Color is fairly clear (apparently bottle conditioned as yeastoids were in the bottom and at the end of the pour clouded the glass a bit) and has a few bubble trails. Aroma is the best part of this beer: caramel, malt, a bit of fruit and hop. Flavor is malt, grain, and caramel sweet luckily offset a bit by the overcarbonated tang. Finish is like flavor. Proly good to cook with.

I found this single 12oz brown bottle at the Binny's store in Plainfield, IL for $1.89. No freshness date but the label does tell you the beer is brewed with barley, wheat, oats, rye, and honey. Hmm ... no mention of hops.

Even an easy pour produced a thick 3-finger white head over a cloudy golden/orange liquid. The head retention was good but the lacing was minimal.

There's not much smell to this. A few swirls coaxed out a bit of grain and some rye, but that's about it.

Change the "o" in blond to an "a" and you have the perfect description of this beer. BLAND with a capital "B". For a beer supposedly brewed with honey, it isn't sweet at all. What you get is some uninspiring grain flavor along with a hint of rye spice and that's about it.

Light, crisp, and overly carbonated.

There's no bad tastes. There's just not enough of any good tastes. This must be the beer being offered as the beer with less taste on the Miller Light commercials.

A - dark hazy yellow color

S - average I guess. Not great.

T - Tastes pretty good. medium body. Refreshing.

M - Not bad. Light.

D - Pretty solid. Wouldn't mind drinking this again.

The label artwork could use some work, but it's a good tasting beer. I would probably try it again if I come across it.

The is a hazey amber and copper with good bubbling. The head is soft white and about one fingers width thick. After the pour, there is a nice thick film of foam thats lasts through all twelve ounces.

The aroma is a creamy wheat and wet milled grain. A little banana from the wheat and some grass from the hops round out the aroma.

The taste has a adjunct , creamy wheat, bananas, and some old house tasting hops.

The palate is crisp and bubbly, but with a old house finish.

Haystack gold with lemonade colored highlights and a three finger crown of newspaper colored foam that isn't exactly bursting with character. The lid looks merely okay as it melts, leaving the glass almost untouched.

The nose is grain-like and bland. That's what happens when a beer's claim to fame is that it uses barley, wheat, oats and rye. Hoppage seems to be minimal. That's a shame since hop flavor was the only thing that would have given this blonde ale a chance to succeed.

One Planet Ale tastes as bland as it smells. To repeat, a low ABV American blonde that puts so much emphasis on its grain bill, which ignoring its hops, has no chance to be anything more than strictly average. Simply put, there is no flavor hook in the house.

Specifics include pale grains with *maybe* a hint of earthiness from the rye. A 'touch of Wisconsin honey' is supposed to be present, though you couldn't tell it by my taste buds. Warming slightly intensifies a narrow range of flavors that were better left unintensified.

The body/mouthfeel is light, even for the style and ABV (which is 4.8% according to two different sources). That's pretty disappointing in what should be a malt-centric ale. The bubbles are nothing to write home about either.

The brewery needs to either go back to the drawing board with One Planet Ale or jettison it completely. I'm not sure what Sand Creek was trying to do here, but whatever it was, it didn't work.

12 oz bottle poured into a pilsner glass. "All Wisconsin barley, wheat, oats, and rye," "Ale brewed with honey," No date or other info.

A - The well-carbonated beer shows off it's bubbles through a completely clear golden yellow color. A short white foam head only reaches about a finger tall before sinking to a thin foamy layer with no lace left over.

S - One Planet smells like an adjunct lager right away with a strong grainy nose with a tiny sulfur pinch to it. Pale malts and a husky wheat nose. I don't get any of the rye sharpness or oats either. A small bit of hops shows up on the finish of this crisp aroma but it's pretty standard if not bland overall. Very mild honey sweetness.

T - Thankfully the flavor rises above the initial adjunct lager speculation I have, but never amounts to anything great. The biggest part of this beer is the lasting honey sweetness that peaks in mid-flavor and tapers off with a long sweet finish. Pale malt and a hint of rye play a bit of a role but never break the honey barrier. The oats and wheat aren't really doing much for me here. Seems like they were added as if to say, "we used as many Wisconsin ingredients as possible to say we did." Either way, the flavor is not spell-binding at all, but it is growing on me slightly.

M - The sweetness of the honey really ramps up the sugary mouthfeel and gives it a medium body. It's still pretty crisp and light from the carbonation though.

D - Not a bad beer overall but it's just falling into a honey ale category of being average at best. It drinks fine but the sweetness has a cloying quality to it I'm finding towards the end. With the ingredient/grain bill, it almost aspires to be too much at once. The oats and wheat don't really shine at all and the rye definitely could use some bringing up. Not bad though.