The Golden Ale pours, actually, a very dark gold color – far darker than a typical golden ale. This is topped off with a white head that spiders down the glass, leaving a considerable web as the beer goes down the gullet. In the nose there is, surprisingly, quite a lot of caramel. In addition, there are hints of horehound candy and anise – none of what I would’ve expected from this ale. The taste of this beer is equally surprising. On the tip of the tongue, there is a quick sugary sweetness that exists just for a blink. After that, big blasts of toffee and caramel come to the forefront, riding the tongue all the way to the back of the mouth, growing bigger as they go down the line. The malty flavors here seem fairly dark, only occasionally showing tints of the light or refreshing characteristics you might expect from a ‘golden’ ale. There is a tad bit of hop here, but no overwhelming or even impressive bitterness. So, frankly, I’m confused. This isn’t a bad beer – it’s flavorful and full and almost syrupy in its mouthfeel. However, it isn’t like any golden ale I’ve ever had. Perhaps you could consider this a hybrid between a pale ale and an amber, but I wouldn’t place those in the ‘golden’ category. Overall, I’m not too sure what to say about this – I likely won’t buy it again, but I can see some redeeming qualities. In my humble opinion, this is a far cry from the quality of the Duck Rabbit brews, but let’s let them crawl before they walk – maybe the next one will be better…

PS – I’ve learned that, apparently, this is a collaboration between the Duck Rabbit folks and the Wolf Beer Co that contract brews. Not exactly a spin-off, but you know…

The Trout Slayer doesn’t actually define a style on the label, but it sure seems to be a standard golden ale. The pour of this is crystal clear with a medium golden color and a barely noticeable thin white head. The aroma of the beer is rather thick and sweet with a caramel note, which is slightly unexpected. In the mouth, this beer is full and flavorful. From the beginning to the end, the beer has a rich bready flavor with hints of a more sugary sweetness that again brings to mind caramel. There isn’t a very large hop note here, although there is a light bitterness that shows up in the aftertaste and leaves you with a tongue coated with rich sweetness and a bitter bite at the back of the throat. Frankly, this would be a great beer while casting a line in some mountain stream, which I reckon is what Big Sky had in mind when they named it. It’s fairly refreshing while still being big and flavorful – great beer for the golden ale genre, and one I’m sure to revisit when I can find it.

This beer pours a soft golden color that is just the slightest bit hazy, with tiny bubbles lackadaisically rising to the thin white head on the surface of the beer. In the nose, there is a medium hop bitterness combined with a lightly sour malt aroma that makes this pungent in a way that isn’t entirely pleasant, but invokes that ‘beeriness’ that is familiar to many golden ales. The taste of this ale is more pronounced than most golden ales you’ll run into. Initially, there is a light carbonation burn on the tip of the tongue, but that quickly transitions into a sourness that is reminiscent of the bastard-son of a French Saison ale – it isn’t quite so defined as what you get in a typical Saison, but the characteristics are there. On top of this is a sweetness that sits in the background, but is most certainly present, in the form of some biscuity malt flavor. As this moves on down the tongue, some metallic hopiness also comes into play, and this increases until the back of the mouth and takes center stage in an aftertaste that sticks around for quite a while. The mouthfeel of this beer is also quite substantial, leaving a thin coating of the beer over the mouth and tongue for seconds after the swallow. Altogether, this isn’t quite my cup of tea. I can see how this would be refreshing on a hot day, due to the pronounced sourness. I can also agree that this is a good interpretation of a the admittedly vague ‘golden ale’ style. However, this melange of flavors isn’t entirely what I’ll usually grab, so forgive me if I’m less than ecstatic about this.

First thing I noticed about this beer was the “brewed with the herb sage” written on the beer’s label. I do not cook frequently with sage, so I was not really sure I knew what sage smelled/tasted like. To remedy this I went out and picked up a pack of sage from the local grocery store. Having smelled and tasted (I would not suggest eating sage just by itself) the sage, I was ready to crack open one of the beers.

The beer poured a nice two fingers of white head into the pint glass. The first finger of head dissipated rather quickly but the remaining finger left a rather firm head of small bubbles. The body of the beer was straw in color with a fare bit of debris floating around, which made the beer quite foggy. Due to the action of the debris, I could tell there was some very nice bubble action happening in the glass.

In the nose this beer had a strong lemon citrus kick to it with some light yeast funk. Since lemon was the predominant smell, lemon was very present in the taste. The lemon taste had a sour flavor at the front of the mouth which finished with a bitterness quality towards the back. Overall mouth feel was on the chalky side of things, but was light and drying.

One thing you might have noticed is the lack of my mentioning sage in my sampling. Personally I could not find the sage in the smell or taste. It might have helped with the bitter finish of the beer, but there was nothing with the bitterness that said “I’m sage”. Due to my initial lack of sage findings, I went back a week later and tried the beer again. Again I personally could not find the sage.

Though rather one dimensional (lemon is the predominant character in this beer), I found this to be a refreshing beer. I found the overall qualities of the beer to lean towards the saison/farmhouse style, so let that factor guide you in your purchasing decision.

The Road Trip pours an opaque golden color with little apparent carbonation, save in the thin stark white head. This actually looks very much like a Belgian witbier in the glass, although I imagine it won’t taste quite so similar. The aroma of this is actually very pleasing. It is lightly sweet with just a hint of lemon zest. There isn’t a lot of hop here, although some of that lemony scent may be attributed to a nice citrus hoppiness. In the mouth, this beer is a little crazy. Initially, the beer seems subdued and lightly sweet. However, about one second into the drink, there is an absolute explosion of bitter/metallic/hoppy/bladow! This flavor seems like a big combination of hops and pilsner malt and some odd creation resulting from the aforementioned recipe. This isn’t bad, but it also isn’t like anything else I’ve taste. The bitterness also has a sourness to it, so it might not suit someone into sweeter beers. However, hopheads or fans of a sour lambic might have a serious draw to this. It is very interesting, and quite tasty to the right palate. And, I have to give a hats-off to SweetWater for saving what would’ve been a botched batch. So, while I don’t recommend this to just anyone, I think any fan of adventurous brews might find this an interesting thing to try.

The pour of this is about what I hoped for – it’s a medium golden with no debris. The aroma of this brew is fairly generic, except with a hint of fruity sweetness on the head. In the mouth, this beer is actually a bit more flavorful than I would’ve expected. It is, by all accounts, a golden ale. However, there is a light fruitiness to it that reminds me of a hint of blueberry, and it hits just about the back of the mouth and then creeps up into the nasal passage. It leaves me with a lightly sweet touch on the palate, and a very good impression of the beer. I’ve had some bad experiences with Abita’s fruit beers in the past and, while this isn’t a fruit beer per se (I imagine it contains no actual fruit), I’m favorably impressed to have this experience. In short, I like this a lot more than I expected I would. Okay, I’m glad that Abita is helping out for charity, obviously. However, this beer isn’t what I would call ‘generic’, like I expected. Rather, it’s a fairly exceptional golden ale that is refreshing with a punchy sweetness that I really like. Good job to Abita for putting forth a good beer for a good cause.

The pour of this beer is a mildly unfiltered golden color with tiny little bubbles giving it a nice effervescence. The aroma is of tart yeast and some lightly sweet malt. In the mouth, this one is syrupy sweet through the mouth with just the slightest hint of hop around the middle of the tongue. Honestly, this is a rather simple brew. It’s fairly tasty, and doesn’t offer too many facets through the mouth – rather, it’s rich and sweet and honestly has a lot of cider characteristics about it. It even tastes a bit apple-y, which may be an accomplishment in its own right, considering there isn’t any apple involved. So. . . there isn’t a whole lot else to say about this beer. It IS tasty if you’re into ciders and very direct flavors in your beer. However, I can’t say that it’s bringing enough to the table to make me pay $7 for another 4-pack of this. They DO recommend cellaring on the label, which might help, although this really doesn’t strike me as a typically cellarable beer. Oh well – have any of you had this? What do you think?

The pour of this beer, frankly, seems a bit boring when compared to a lot of beers. It’s a filtered golden color and, by look, could pass for any domestic macro-brewed light beer. However, a quick sniff quickly squashes any preconceptions you may have about this beer. This beer has a lightly sweet and spicy smell that is somewhat similar to a Belgian tripel, but not quite as cloying and lacking the occasional citrus aspect – also, it’s not too pungent. Basically, it smells very enticing, and I expect it to taste good. And, taste good it does! This beer enters the mouth with a light but substantial kick. There is an initial carb burn on the tip of the tongue that opens up the tastebuds for the spicy sweetness to follow. On through the mouth, this spiciness maintains, but is melanged with a mild hop bitterness and a nice sweetness reminiscent also of a tripel – I’m not entirely sure if there is any candi sugar used in this (it DOES use a Belgian yeast), but the sweetness leads me to believe there may be. On through the mouth, this spiciness picks up a light floral flavor and finishes with a second bite at the back of the throat. The floral sweetness then maintains in the throat or quite some time without heading too far up the nasal cavity. Great Divide has accomplished a nice light beer that is both refreshing and quite complex. It’s sorta an American tripel blended with the flavor of a lighter lager, and I like it…