Cream of the Crop
Written: Jun 25 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Wonderfully complex pale ale is fruity, malty and hoppy all at once.
Cons: Limited availability.
The Bottom Line: A delicious and complex ale that's great with food.
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| Bruguru's Full Review: Pale Ale |
Poor beer. It gets no respect. It’s the Rodney Dangerfield of alcoholic beverages. It has every bit as much complexity as wine, but many people don’t seem to realize this. Sure, there are beers out there on the market that don’t challenge the taste buds with new flavors and sensations. They don’t come at you from three or four different directions, and you won’t be picking up pear, apple, banana, or smoke in them. But, and this is a big but, that’s true of the wine world too. For those who site Budweiser as the definition of beer, I’ll counter that the same could be said for Gallo and wine.
I was reminded of this the other night while watching Miss Congeniality. In the film’s most memorable scene (for me anyway), Sandra Bullock is sitting at the table dining with Michael Caine. Playing the part of the uncultured rube, she’s eating a steak and of course drinking a Bud Light with it. Caine, the cultured and eloquent man of the world who is about to transform Bullock into a lady, is of course drinking wine. Such stereotyping makes my blood boil.
What really struck me as peculiar was the fact that Caine didn’t specify a particular winery or vintage. He just told the waiter, “Bring me another cabernet sauvignon”. I suppose that’s enough to impress many people who aren’t familiar with wine but still hold a great deal of respect for it. Still, though beer styles are much less familiar to most people, they can be equally sophisticated. Were I directing the film, Caine might just as easily have asked the waiter for a Trappist tripel, a rauchbier, a biere de garde, a barleywine, or perhaps even a Lakefront Cream City Pale Ale.
This beer derives its name from the cream-colored bricks used to construct the brewery. They’re ubiquitous throughout Milwaukee, and are responsible for the city sometimes being referred to as “Cream City”. A generous dry hopping of Cascades gives the beer its wonderful citric finish; carapils and caramel malt provide the rich body to the brew.
Lakefront Cream City Pale Ale pours to a murky amber color with a head that’s as thick and creamy as the name implies and a soft malty nose that hints at pear and citrus. The palate is smooth and malty with a rich mouthfeel and a wonderfully citric hoppy finish. I like the way the hops build slowly in the finish, first giving you the citric grapefruit with a touch of toasty malt, and then gradually leaving a growing bitterness on the tongue that really intensifies in the finish. This is a really great beer with food. I enjoyed a bottle tonight with grilled lamb chops seasoned with garlic, salt, and pepper and accompanied by angel hair pasta tossed in parmesan cheese, cream, and parsley and pinto beans slow cooked with bacon and served over cornbread.
Recommended:
Yes
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