Gossamer Golden Ale

Goss-a-mer refers to a style of wings that belong to the Lycaenidae family of insects.
Tasted following a day in the lab inoculating agar slants with the pure cultures of yeast I've been generating for the last 4 weeks. The next step is to ferment some wort, centrifuge, and pour out the remaining liquid. With the yeast pellet still at the bottom, I'm going to cover it in glycerol and store for different periods of time at -80 degrees Celsius and then inoculate more plates to check their viability. Sweet stuff. Purchased this beer straight from the brewery after getting a sneak peak around. Tasted for the first time at the brewery and found I had to get the four pack...

Appearance: A brilliantly clear golden liquid with a persisting carbonation within. The white head started very bubbly but dissipated into a thick froth foam. Lacing where the head once was is dry and Styrofoam-looking. Incredibly clear and well filtered. Quite visually appealing.

Aroma: Sweet but subtle biscuit malt is at the forefront of the nose. Next comes a nice bouquet of floral smells and wheat like undertones. Some moderate citrus permeates the nostrils along with a complex wealth of hop aromas. Yeast pungency and breadiness present as well. A little bit of lager character in the scent.

Taste: Sweet wheat taste with an equally paralleled lemon zest flavor at the front, then the beer pauses and then presents a pilsner like crispness with a dash of citrus hops. Peppery in the finish along with other spicy characters. The bitterness bites with a saaz flavor but with an accompaniment from a bready undertone. The finish also reminds me of lemongrass, especially with the bittering factor. Some grassiness may be drawn from the flavor, but it is overall negligible over the lemon pepper finish.
Mouthfeel: A light refreshing body is encouraged by a moderately high carbonation. Nevertheless the beer leaves the palate clean, but dry and refreshed and crisp.
Overall Impression: Extremely drinkable with an ironic complexity from all fronts. Spicy from the lemon and pepper, but citrusy from a unique combination of hops. The malt is basic, characteristically biscuit/pale/wheat, but still maintains its part in holding the rest of the flavors in line. The after burp is fantastic. I did however find that the beer was better at Half Acre from their gift shop taps, but it is still a remarkable beer.


87/100