I knew this US import was trouble from the moment I laid eyes on it. Golden Ale sounds innocent enough, but an ale that’s “spicy and peppery with a gentle hop bouquet” didn’t sound like your run of the mill easy drinking refreshing golden to me. An 8 percenter with “the beguiling influence of wild yeast” could have been another clue. “Oak aged, can conditioned” did help my pre-quaff stress level. But the tip off for me should have been a brewery named after that useless orange orb of a fruit posing as a vegetable, a Jolly Pumpkin no less.
The COMDB translation department were called in once again to deal with a beer name of some exotic foreign origin which they quickly dispatched with a two-word response, “Oro, gold”. They are belligerent but efficient, unendearing yet enduring, irritating but useful. You get the picture.
However I have had some luck with strong Golden Ales of the Belgian persuasion in the past so there was still hope. It has a hazy bright golden pour with an equally bright white head, so far so good. Unfortunately hope faded with a whiff of Jiff. Malt bread and tart spice aroma, not a natural nose, some trouble brewing here.
The first taste was spice and fizz, with a tart almost sour finish. Spices were the main attraction or detraction as the case may be. The yeast did not beguile me. The whole ragout of spice, yeast, malt and oak was a complex, competing, confounding and concerning combination. This is no Golden Ale except in colour. It’s a saison in my books, maybe even a saison sour if there is such a thing.*
Too complex, too spicy, too tart, just too much of a lot of things. It is complex to a fault. A cross-border craftastrophe.
I love Michigan; the Upper Peninsula, Mackinac Island.** The Detroit sound and great Michigan rock imports like MC5, Grand Funk Railroad, and The White Stripes. But this import should have been stopped at the border for false ID, I wish I had dodged this draft.
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