For the second blind tasting, I chose pale ale, American-style, and I chose two distinctive beer cities and two distinctive breweries as subjects.
Would I be able to discern San Diego from Portland? Pizza Port’s new Graveyard Pale Ale or Gigantic’s Scrilla Pale Ale?
Beer 1 – pours an orange color with a tea and fruit punch aroma. This is crisp and very light and the fruit punch notes are quite prevalent. A bit tilted to the watery side.
Beer 2 – pours a bright yellow. Very vegetal with a strong cat pee note to it. That follows through to the beer which is not a favorite to me though the base malts hold it up better.
My guess is that 2 is Pizza Port and 1 is Gigantic. Am I right?
I was! But it was based on a hunch and not something concrete. I guessed that a lighter IPA wouldn’t fly as far in San Diego. Plus Graveyard smells like one. So two hints pushed me in that direction.