golden stone amber ale

Ok cats and kitties time to enjoy more beer with me your self appointed beer expert.

A lot of the beer that I'll be reviewing on the blog can be seen live on two guys and a guest, the online show featuring me and Martin Jon of Chicago arts. But right now and with great excitement (note the exclamation mark at the end of this sentence) we will be sampling golden stone amber from Metolius brewing co.! I picked this up on a whim at the store tonight when I Was grabbing a sam adams chocolate bock to review in another post, I realized only after picking it up it was metolius and not metropolian brewery. But, accidentally purchased suprise beer is even more exciting than carefully planned beer. So back to golden stone amber.

Upon cracking this bottle open the hops was pretty noticeable. That faded quickly. The hop nose is present but nothing extraordinary. The beer has a very pleasant color to it. It's a delightful red amber color. A clear beer with a very light foamed head. Nice as the color is this is the rare beer that really seems to be better out of a bottle than a glass. The head as noted is weak, and there is a flatness to it, a low carbonation that might be aided by the bottle. The smell of it also just kind of falls away nothing of the scent stands out as noticeable.

Ok so let's get on with the taste right? The taste much like the scent has no stand out elements. Golden stone amber has a slightly astringent flavor, a over boiled malt husk kind of thing. It is similar to a rye character that i have begun to love in rogue's dead guy all, but the sweeter malt here just doesn't jive. Other than that though it is a simple beer, slightly sweet but not overtly, mildly hoppy but not substantially, and no particular outside the box flavoring. It does have a much better body and malt flavor than say Miller Lite, but is just as drinkable. It would easily go down on a hot day or while eating a burger.

The neck of the bottle has a slightly confusing bit of text that describes the beer as the perfect fishing beer. I'll agree a cooler full of this and a canoe full of bugs on hooks, could be a great afternoon. Of course it won't have the nostalgia of the cans of stroh's that we drank in junior high at the creek fishing but it will taste way better. I give this beer two and a half out of five glasses. It ain't anything to seek out, but if it's in your hand it ain't bad.

Metolius is located in Portland, Or. and a five minute google search gives me no link to send you to it.

drink hearty lads,
dan