I have been eyeballing this for a while, but wasn’t sure what it was. The other day I was at Wines and More and thought what the hell. Let’s give it a shot. It is really good. Has a very citrus smell, almost grapefruit like. It is a very light taste and finishes very clean. I did some looking and Russian River calls it a Hoppy Blonde Ale. I am going to have to do a bit of research cause this could be something to add that isn’t an IPA. LOL. Anyway, now I am curious about Blonde Ale’s and what you all have in that arena. Based on the description on the Russian River website, they use Citra, Crystal, Comet and
Talus hops.
I haven’t had this beer, but in my opinion a “Hoppy Blond Ale” is just an APA with a fancy name. A more typical Blond Ale isn’t going to smell intensely citrus/grapefruit, but it may have a lower amount of that character in balance with some toasty or crackery malt flavors coming from Pale/Pilsner/Vienna malt.
Cool. I just went with what the description of the beer was on Russian River’s website. So I will look more towards APA to see what I can find. It was really good.
blonde ale and cream ale are interchangeable here imho.
belgian blonde ale tends(tended?) to mean a fairly sweet and chewy 6 to 7% ABV beer. i kind of miss those now that i think about them
I would agree that Blonde & Cream are very similar, but I think there are differences, however subtle. Where a Cream should be light, crisp, clean and almost lager-like, I think a Blonde can (and should) have a bit more character…a little bit more malt and hop presence. And then there’s Kolsch, which is another sibling…