Session #13 - Organic Beers

Hi All,

Happy first Friday in March. This is my first posting for use in the session hosted by The Beer Advocate Chris O'Brien. Thank you for doing this it should be a good month. This months topic for the session is organic beer. I went to a BevMo (I think anyway) and looked through the shelves and picked a Golden Pale Ale called Scarecrow from Wychwood Brewery in Whiney,Oxfordshire, England.

The label has the USDA Organic seal and the description on the bottle states that it is brewed using organically grown Plumage Archer barley malt and Target hops to create a refreshing tasting beer of exceptional flavour & character. Ingredients grown to organic standards prohibits the use of synthetic pesticides & fertilizers. Sounds organic to me and I love that they tell me it has exceptional flavor and character. I guess I don't really need to review it. I guess I will anyway.

Well here it goes:

Sound - After the pop of the cap I heard the the traditional Pssst! Sounds good to me!

Pour - The Scarecrow pours a really nice golden blonde color, clear, with a nice foaming head. After waiting a minute to see head retention the head was gone. I really like the color but I prefer a longer lasting head.

Smell - I am not professional but it smells like beer. ;-) Just kidding it had a nice light floral smell. You also could small a hint of malt. Based on smell I am assuming this is going to be a nice light balanced beer.

Taste - Well I was wrong. Based on the smell I was thinking this was going to be a very smooth flavored beer with nice balance between hops and malt and bitterness and sweetness. This beer is a lot more bitter then I was expecting. It is actually pretty good. I can taste both the hops and the malt and the slight bitter linger at the finish. I wouldn't call this my favorite beer I ever tried but it isn't bad. If I was brewing this beer I think I would balance the bitterness a little more.

After trying an organic beer I honestly can't tell you if there is much difference in an organic and non-organic beer. I think if the ingredients are good and the recipe is formulated properly then you can get a good beer. Not to mention this beer was a $1 more then non organic beers of the same style. Not that I am cheap but I like bang for my buck and I don't think that organic beer(I have tried it 1 other time)is worth the extra cost. Don't get me wrong if an organic beer is available and it looks interesting then I will give it a try but I won't go out of my way to get it.

Hope you all enjoyed my review of Scarecrow Pale Ale and I am looking forward to the next session what ever they may be. Please see all the other session posts at http://beeractivist.wordpress.com/

Later