American Pale Ale

F: medium size, egg-white, average retention. C: gold, light hazy. A: orange, bit herbal, bit grapefruits, grassy, light floral. T: sweet herbal bitter combination, grapefruits, orange, long lasting bitterness, dry on the palate, not bad at all, medium body and carbonation, 33cl bottle from Albert Heijn Duinenwater supermarket in Knokke.

Thank you ! 330 ml. bottle sampled. BBF 28.08.2017. Golden orange, little head. Nose is strange grapefruit citrus, very perfume & candy-like, low tropical cheap lemonade. Oily sweeter grapefruit lemonade, perfume basic low hop oil like, peculiar perfume-like oily bit lemonade like, I can see this appealing but for me a bit strange neither this nor that lemonade feel. Not all bad for sure.

33cl Bottle from AH. Clear golden orange colour, white head. Aroma of caramel, light resin, light floral, a bit sweet. Flavour of carbonated water with a hint of bitter orange, light citrusy. Light bodied. Not great.

0.33 l bottle from 'AH XL' (Maastricht), bottled in August 2017. Clear, dark amber with a medium large, dense, almost stable, white head. Sweetish, quite fruity, moderately grassy and slightly resiny aroma of orange jam, grapefruit and some pine. Slightly sweet, moderately bitter, rather fruity, moderately grassy and a bit resiny taste of orange jam, grapefruit, some mango and a touch of pine, followed by a medium long, rather dry-bitter, grassy and slightly resiny finish. Medium body, slightly creamy and moderately effervescent mouthfeel, soft carbonation. Pretty nice APA with a decent hop bite!

Flesje gedronken bij tasting Mitra Oirschot. Geel tot oranje kleurig bier. Aroma en smaak is citrusachtig en hoppig. Nasmaak is iets bitter.

Geproefd op tasting met Roelzie1986, Inoven en Benzai. Het is een oranje achtig bier met. Het heeft een moutige fruitige smaak.

schenkt helder gouden met witte kraag. aroma van citrus, mout, den, grapefruit, smaken zijn redelijk bitter, kort aanhoudend, iets lichte body, wat dun ook, citrus schil(niet zo extreem), bittertje van de grapefruit is ook aanwezig, kruiden, gras, redelijk veel smaken, matige body, zachte co2.

Bottle @ home shared with Dutchdrebus and Ansjelaah. Clear yellow golden color, average sized white to off-white head. Smell and taste lightly malts, yeasty, soapy, sweetish. Nah, not good.

Another of these Amsterdam Lowlander beers brewed at Jopen, this time with added blood orange, grapefruit and - indeed - sumac, a sour kind of 'spice' taken from the staghorn sumac and used to flavour lemonade and other things; I have fond memories of staghorn sumac trees as my grandmother already used to cultivate them and I see their deep red blossoms, feathered leaves and hairy branches before my eyes when I read the ingredients list on this bottle. Still, the prospect of an APA flavoured with "botanicals" does not really elicit high expectations in me, I'm afraid... We'll see. Shows a medium thick, egg shell-white, intricately but 'symmetrically' cobweb-lacing, stable head, showing some gaps here and there, over a clear, pure and warm orange blonde robe. Aroma very 'botanical' (in the current, gin-driven sense of the word) indeed, I get angelica-, fennel- and even cough drop-like sensations from this, overruling most other things really; even though I am very familiar with the staghorn sumac plant in its living form, I have no idea what its spicy derivative is supposed to smell or taste like other than 'sour' (hence the plant's alternative name 'vinegar tree') but I am convinced that this gin-like, almost medicinal smell hardly does it any honour. Beneath this heavy 'botanical' perfume lie much more subtle hints of dry biscuit, grass, orange peel (in a 'dry' kind of way - not very reminiscent of the juicy 'liveliness' of actual blood orange), grapefruit peel indeed and much more clearly so than the blood orange, dried out white bread, apple peel, cloves, white pepper, green beans, raw cauliflower. Fruity, crisp, clean onset, bittering from the start due to the grapefruit I suppose, hints of red apple and dried apricot but generally very low in sweetness; medium carbonation, slick and bit oily mouthfeel. Lightly biscuity, cereally but somewhat thinnish malt 'roundness' underlies the grapefruit bitterness, which only increases towards the end, eventually becoming harshly Schweppes-like; the alleged sourness of sumac, in whatever form this may manifest itself, is nowhere to be seen and the sweetness of orange is drowned in this all-consuming tonic-like grapefruit peel bitterness, which dominates everything from the middle onwards. Meanwhile the fennel- and angelica seed-like 'botanicals' from the nose return retronasally, in a rather crude, brutal form. Hop bitterness is initially a bit muted by that grapefruit bitterness, lingering around for a long time, but clearly manifests itself at the end in a rooty, hayish, floral but thoroughly bittering way - bittering on top of the grapefruit so needless to say, this beer is all about resolute bitterness. Ever since De Molen came along in the beginning of this century, the Netherlands have enthusiastically jumped on the craft beer bandwagon, leading to over four hundred different brewing companies being active there now - with the majority of them connecting to the international hop forward-movement, producing IPAs galore. This IPA enthusiasm, originally an American thing but having become an international phenomenon in the past two decades including Holland, has apparently resulted in a shortage of hops, prompting the Dutch craft brewers to seek alternatives for bitterness in other plants. I am a bit under the impression that this is such a case: there are still a lot of hops in this beer, certainly, but the grapefruit bitterness seems to stronger, and why not use grapefruit (peel?) as an alternative to hops... This beer is bitter to the bone, with the bitterness that lingers after swallowing, being a clear mixture of the leafy, old familiar hop bitterness we all love on the one hand, and a generously added grapefruit bitterness on the other hand. I'd rather have the hop bitterness alone but even without the grapefruit, this beer would have been way too hoppy to qualify as an APA; this is much rather a kind of spiced IPA, a concept not very often found yet even from an international perspective. Whether it is a viable concept, remains to be seen: the 'botanical' aspect of this beer is way too overpowering for me personally, but if you like your beers really spicy in a fashionable, gin-hype-like way, then this is surely a must try. Not my personal beer at all, but admittedly well-made from a purely technical perspective.

Imported from my RateBeer account as Lowlander American Pale Ale (by Lowlander Beer):
Aroma: 6/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 6/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 12/20, MyTotalScore: 3.1/5

4/X/17 - 33cl bottle @ home - BB: 26/VI/19 (2017-1763) Thanks to Erwin for sharing the bottle!

Clear orange beer, big creamy off-white head, pretty stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: some grapefruit, caramel malts. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: very malty, grains, bitter, spicy touch, bit fruity, grassy. Aftertaste: unpleasant bitterness, gin, weird, no good.