Ithaca Excelsior! White Gold

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 8

Ithaca White Gold 3.1 cheapdark Ith WG S7L4F3T6O11 Almost missed this one, it was not on the updated menu at Bocktown; nice place. Smells good like ginger ale! Looks like a typical cloudy whit bier, very attractive. Creamy head fades rapidly, little bursts of spitting popping head bubbles. First taste, tho kind and gentle, does have an alky notion. Volatile aftertaste follows but it is neither to the point, nor overwhelming. Goes down way easy to the boot. Reminds me a bit of a mild easygoing whiskey spiked ginger ale. Good enjoyable carbonation. Mild to medium odious bitter linger. Best belgie strong ale I’ve had, heheheh!

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Batch E! 005; Sampled July 2008
A regular pour produces two-fingers of frothy, off-white colored head. The beer is a hazed, pale honey color that shows an orange tinged, gold color when held up to the light. The aroma has quite a lot of fermentation character to it; lightly musty, an earthy spice note, light notes of distinct candied orange zest, a spicy ginger & pepper, some fruity esters of pear, plum and aromatic apple as well as a lightly herbal flower nectar note. The grain aromatics come through pretty well to with notes of grassy wheat, honey like malt and saltine cracker aromatics. This is quite aromatic and I like how the honey like sweetness offsets the spicy note.

Quite spicy tasting up front with a peppery bite that is coupled with earthy, musty phenolics and some ginger notes that are accentuated by a honey-like malt sweetness that just barely kisses the palate. Quite grain like with notes of wheat and pale malt; cracker notes, a touch of dough-like breadiness, and some biscuit flavors are each noticeable. Somehow the malt has a slight candied note to it, without really being sweet; sort of caramel like, though very much in the background, I wonder if this is a touch of oxidation that is bringing this out. The finish has a certain bite to it that is a combination of a hop bitterness, a sort of herbal note, some spicy higher alcohols and a spicy floral type thing. Pretty quaffable, though it is not light bodied, instead there is a light-medium fullness to his that just sticks to the palate.

There is not much in the way of distinctly Brettanomyces derived flavors here, though they could be influencing the musty, earthy aspects of this beer (though this could just as likely be from a characterful Saccharomyces strain). This is a tasty beer though that is a pleasure to drink. The aroma comes off a bit more intriguingly than the taste, but only just.