In the glass today is Five Points Pale, a 4.4% beer brewed with amarillo, centennial and citra hops. Five Points, based up in Hackney, has a tight core range consisting of this pale ale, a porter, a red ale, and a recently-launched IPA. They have also put out an experimental brett porter, which was quite good.
I've had this beer twice before, once from cask and once from bottle, and each time I enjoyed it. This bottle today, though, doesn't fire on all cylinders. It pours mostly clear gold with a frothy, white head. The nose holds a bit of citric orange, some grainy pale malts, dirty hay, wet leaves. The flavor is lightly sweet with pale bread, bitter grain husks, slight grass, orange rind, more hay. It's light bodied with fine, almost soft carbonation; the condition seems slightly wanting. Further gritty bitterness to finish, some astringency, hints of wood and grass, rindy citrus, some soggy white bread. The astringency lingers on the back of the tongue. There could be a bit of over-extraction in here or something. Overall it's still drinkable stuff, but given previous experience with this beer I expect more. (Score: 2.8/5.0)
Bottle came in a mixed case of beers from London breweries, from new online retailer London Beer.
No comments:
Post a Comment