River Horse Hop Hazard

So I picked this up partially because of the artwork on the bottle - which is pretty awesome, and partially because it was called Hop Hazard. I actually thought it was an IPA at first, but it's not. It's actually an American Pale Ale, so I feel kind of cheated already. I pretty much don't like pale ales a lot.

The beer poured with a substantial head, about 2 fingers of thick foam. Head retention on this seemed pretty good, it lasted for a while and stuck to the side of the glass. The beer was a CLOUDY deep tan. They weren't kidding when they said it was unfiltered... our beers have turned out much clearer than this. It's almost unattractively cloudy.

The smell is balanced between hops and malt. I was expecting a lot more hoppy smell from a beer called hop hazard, but it's still pleasant. It had a mix between grassy and citrus hop aromas, with a sweet caramel smell to it. There's also a little grainy aroma that comes through.

The taste is a bit sweet and citrus at first. I got a somewhat substantial bitterness in the back of the mouth. It's a more hop-dominated flavor than I was expecting based on the smell. There's also a bit of a weird tang to it on the tongue. It's decently balanced, although I really get a lot more bitter from the hops and not a lot of the flavors you would generally associate with hops. The bitterness really sticks on the tongue and lasts for a while. It kind of reminds me of unsweetened tea. After a while the citrus starts to come through in the aftertaste as well, with a distinct orange flavor. It's almost what you would get from a beer with a slice of orange in it.

The beer has a good level of carbonation, in the medium-heavy range. It has a substantial heaviness to it for a pale ale, definitely a medium bodied beer that might be slightly on the full side. It's a bit much stylistically but I'm not holding that against it. It seems like there's little to no coating in the mouth from the beer, and just the slightest warmth from the alcohol.

I'm a bit torn on this beer. Stylistically it's all over the place. At 6.5%, it's high on alcohol for a Pale Ale. It's pretty much as dark as a pale ale can get, it's cloudy, and despite what they claim on the bottle it doesn't taste particularly balanced. On the other hand, I usually find pale ales bland, boring, and flavorless. This actually tastes decent, although not my favorite, and it's definitely not bland. I don't think I'd buy it again, but if someone offered it to me I wouldn't turn it down. I certainly wasn't looking forward to being done with the glass and moving on to something else. With me, for a pale ale, that's really saying something.

- Adam