Blue Paddle

2005 bottle from Liquor Mart sampled on 9/30/2005. Pours a light, honey-yellow color, rather vibrant and bubbly, clear and filtered and with a good-sized and fairly well-retained white head comprised of large bubbles, quite foamy. Aroma has soft, grassy and lightly spicy hops supported by a fair amount of pils malt. Crisp, slightly sourish lager yeast is heavy through the middle and mixes with the honey flavors on the end nicely. Very clean overall, don’t find any flaws in this one, no corn-like yeast biproducts or veggies (not that I expected any). Body is a respectable medium and well to-style. A bit overcarbonated for my liking (being force carbonated of course), but nothing unusual for a bottled pils. Some dry, doughy/biscuity malt gets a little too thick but is saved in the end by a decent amount of grass and herbs lingering on.

Aroma of grainy malts. Flavor of spice, grain and grass with a slightly bitter aftertaste. The pour was inviting — golden body, nice head with lasting lacing. Medium body and a crips, clean mouthfeel. Nicely done pilsener.

Gold, fast fading white head, no bead.Spicy hop nose. Peppery hop profile,lots of malt to balance, light,lasting hop end

Golden colour with a soft sparkle. Well-balanced aroma with herbal hops and fresh bread. The soft body is accented towards the malts, which unfortunately don’t come off with the same fresh expressiveness that they do in the aroma. More like dull, day-old bread. There is some hoppy crispness in the finish to salvage things a bit.

Bottle. Very clear golden beer with a thin white head. Grass and spice aroma. Light malt backing, spicey hops, just a bit of fruitiness. Clean crisp and dry. Sounds like your normal pilsner, but just a tad darker, and just missing something the great pilsners have.

Bottle Pours a crystal clear very light amber with a momentary white fizzy head leaving sparce lacing. Aroma is of light grains, not much hops and biased to the malts a bit. Flavor is a bitter, almost sour flavor at first, but after a moment the mellow, bread and yeast comes through. Still pretty easy on the hops. Feel is thin, dare I say, watery..and quite lively carbonation. Aftertaste is a pleasant and soft wheat bread flavor. Not bad..but forgetable.

(draught) Yellow to (very) light amber; small white head, very good lace. Very light malts nose, lightly grassy aroma. Very light malt taste, ever so slight bitterish finish. Very light body, but with a nice Champenoise pearling. Rather uninteresting pilsener.

Thanks to AustinMilbarge for this Pils. I have never really been a fan of the style and this one didn't really change my mind on the matter. Pours a light gold color with a medium thin off-white head and rather lively carbonation. Not much lacing to speak of. Aroma is actually rather pleasant, delivering a nice crisp hops, citrus and malt experience to the nose. Unfortunately the flavor did not match up to the aroma. I found this to be a little harsh flavor-wise, and not as clean as I was hoping. Hops flavor was nice but there was something off in the mix. Dry finish. Okay but New Belgium has better to offer.