Beer of the Week: Dale's Pale Ale

Beer score: 5.7

Company: Oskar Blues Brewery

ABV: 6.5
IBU: 65

I rarely trust a beer in a can. It's not that beer from a can is always bad, but that I've always felt when tasting beers that I get a better representation of the taste when poured from a bottle into a clear glass. Dale's Pale Ale doesn't come in a bottle, though, and it's been quite popular the last decade or thereabouts, so I decided to give it a go anyway even though I can't get it in a bottle.

I wasn't disappointed. Yes, there's a pretty good beer behind this can from a Colorado brewery.

It had a nice foam head when I poured, perhaps a little more than I prefer but nothing awful, plus that foam tasted pretty good. Appeared somewhat cloudy in the glass, but that's not a bad thing, with a slightly dark brown in color.

There's plenty of strength in the flavoring, and those who don't like bitter ales might not care for this one, though I have had ales with even more bitterness to them. There's a bit of a caramel hops tinge to the tasting, and that's not bad at all. There might be the barest hint of a citrus texture in the aftertaste, but that also might have been my brain fooling me.

All in all a good solid beer but one with some class, one of the few beers that is appropriate for the backyard barbecue and a beer tasting at an art gallery. Really, it crosses the borders between the various worlds of beer. Not the best beer in the world, but a pretty good 'un, and far, far from the worst.

Give it a try.