Heavy Seas Gold Ale

One thing I love about Delaware is the whole no sales tax thing.  So when I head down that way for a vacation, I tend to go a little overboard on buying beer.  Especially since most of the beers I found were significantly cheaper than they are near home.  I like to look for variety cases from breweries I haven't tried yet.  This time, I stumbled across Heavy Seas, so I started with their Gold Ale:

Vittles:

Blonde Ale

4.5% abv

17 IBUs

Score:

Appearance: 7/10

Aroma: 21/25

Taste: 35/40
Mouthfeel: 8/10
Style: 4/5
Drinkability: 8/10
Overall: 83/100

Impression:
I like the bready, crackery, biscuity aromas, and I smell some floral, fruity sweetness in the background.  The flavors follow fairly well, and the floral flavors come more to the forefront, which creates a very nice balance between the malt and hops characters.  It finishes a little sweet, a little dry, and very crisp and clean.  This beer's more refreshing than I thought it would be.  I haven't had many blonde ales in the past few months, but this is one I will definitely come back to in the future.  Overall, it's very satisfying.

Cheers!

Saranac Session Ale

Sometimes (quite often, actually), I want the taste of beer without a lot of alcohol, but there are relatively few American beers that are truly sessionable.  So when I come across a session ales, I like to try them.  Maybe I'll find a tastier alternative to the Yuengling Light Lager that's my session stand-by.  Saranac's summer beer sampler included a session ale, and I wasn't in the mood for anything too strong or heavy, so that's what I went with:

Vittles:

Blonde Ale

4.5% abv

Score:

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 18/20
Taste: 30/40
Mouthfeel: 7/10
Style: 4/5
Drinkability: 8/10
Overall: 75/100

Impression:
4.5% abv is a little high for a good session ale, as far as I'm concerned.  I'd love to find a non-BMC beer that clocks in around 3.5% -- that's about the range I would prefer in my ideal session beer.  Anyway, Saranac Session Ale is middling at best.  It tasted very similar to their Kolsch, which I tried recently.  It started out with a decent head, but with poor head retention, it fell pretty quickly to a small, thin ring of foam.  I unfortunately smelled a bit of the cooked vegetable smell of DMS, but that seemed to fade a little over time.  There was also a wet hay kind of flavor at the start, but that flavor became a little sweeter and more mild as the beer warmed.  There was also a nice floral hop quality that balanced out the malt flavors very nicely.  With a crisp and clean finish, this beer was fairly average but very refreshing.

Maybe it's just me, but many of Saranac's beers taste very similar.  They all seem to share a certain taste that I can't quite put my finger on yet.  I like their beers -- they're solid examples of their particular styles, but they aren't outstanding in any way.

Cheers!