Tasting Day: Mild Pale Ale

Recipe and Brewday here.

After a long, hard day, I settled down in the evening with a bottle of Mild Pale Ale. I think this beer was ready after 4 weeks of carbonation.

A quick pour and I had a finger and a half thick head which persisted for a while but still stuck around even after I finished the bottle. On the nose, a slight citrus, lemony note played around but the aroma wasn't as strong as say, even a session IPA.

My first sip was very revealing: sour beer. Yes, I tasted sour beer. I'm not sure if this is because of the Cascade or the use of S-33, but it was definitely sour.

Would I call the beer spoilt? I would like to instantly nod in the affirmative but in the further sips I could taste a wee bit of the bitterness. It is a fairly drinkable beer because of the unexpected sourness.

The beer left patches of lacing all over the glass as I emptied it and left a wee bit of head even after I finished the beer.

I tried another bottle a few days after I tried the first one and it seems that the sourness does not exist in the second bottle. It may have either mellowed out (but does sourness mellow out?) or it may have been just the first bottle.