Hello everybody and welcome back to the Brew Review!
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale a tale of a fateful trip, that started from this tropic port aboard this tiny ship. Yep, today we make the voyage to the Island, Goose Island. One of my favorite breweries hands down. I love their IPA, their Wheat; 312, and now I take a taste of their Harvest Ale. So sit back and relax. It will only be a 3 hour tour.
About Harvest Ale
Goose has a great video on their site that described this beer in an excellent way. So instead of me rambling on I thought I would just share the video.
If you want to know more about Goose Island’s Harvest Ale check out their site.
http://www.gooseisland.com/pages/harvest_ale/23.php
My Review
The Package
The package on the Harvest Ale is pretty standard. It dons the regular Goose logo/crest with a nice image of grains swaying in the background. The packaging doesn’t excite or bore me. It fits in with the Goose brand and if you like their beer you would probably drink it if the package had dog poop on it. I would.
The Pour
Harvest ale feels like fall when you pour it. It comes out of the bottle in am orange/red hue that will remind you of turning leaves. There is a nice off-white head that sits atop the glass and follows you down as you drinking lacing the sides to the bottom.
The Nose
The nose to me wasn’t dramatic. It had subtle tones of pine needle like hops and citrus flavors.
The Palate
Goose’s Harvest is a pretty good beer. I could definitely see it being an early fall campfire beer. The smell of the burning wood and cool breeze on your back while you sip this definitely sounds enjoyable to me.
The characteristics of the beer keep this one in the middle of the pack for me. There were less hops that I had expected it to have after the nose, but I found a nice roasted malt flavor that was absent on the nose instead. I enjoyed the balance it created. I seemed to lose a lot of the citrus notes that were on the nose too. There was a good amount of carbonation in Harvest that gave is a little more of a crisp finish that I liked.
Harvest isn’t a standout player, but it is definitely good enough to drink and shouldn’t be a beer you pass on.
The Rating
3 out of 5 stars
This is a darker ale which makes it very attractive to me. The darker and richer the better. But since I haven’t tasted one yet I’d probably pass because I’m with you. I like the strong tastes of hops and the malts in my beers.
Yeah Dave, it is mediocre at best. Drink it if it is around or pick it up to sip by a campfire with friends, but don’t go out of your way looking for it.
Goose Island is not my fav but I will have to give it a try. Just Pick up some Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate stout and some flying Dog Brewery Canis Major pack. I’ll let you know it taste. Bottoms up
Flying dog is one of my favorite breweries because it was one of the first craft brews I tried back in when I was a mere lad. I won’t say when because well that might be illegal.
Mine was doghead fish compliments of my older brother David. I would have to say it would have been around when I was 17 when I moved out.
Dogfish head’s 60 minute IPA is by far my favorite beer right now. It has the perfect balance of malts and hops, a really full body for an IPA, I really just can’t say anything bad about it at all.