Noble Pils

Tonight’s blog entry brings you the Noble Pils from Sam Adams, the first hoppy beer from the Boston Brewing company that I’ve come across in my near-year of blogging about beer.

The first nose of this beer is minty with a slight hint of hops, and the overall aroma gets diluted once it actually makes it into your glass. It pours out as a very clear and pale yellow fluid with practically no head on it. The aroma is practically non-existent, though the barely-present hop profile is slightly sweet. It’s a flavorful beer, but certainly not what I was expecting – aside from the minty intonations, there’s not much else to it. It’s not nearly hoppy enough, and overall it is a very bland beer. I would even go so far to say that, like most of the Sam Adam’s beers, it is watered down and overall, underwhelming.

For a beer that attempts to highlight its hoppy ancestry, this isn’t even close to an IPA, and it really just tastes like the Boston Lager with some hops sprinkled in it. This hoppy brew from the behemoth of Boston was frankly underwhelming certainly did not live up to the hype. It is certainly not one of Sammy’s best. I came across a couple bottles of this at various parties, but from what I understand it is bundled as part of the 12-bottle Brewmaster’s Collection, which I found at my local grocery store for $13.

Tonight’s Thirsty Thursday brings a relatively light beer – the Oberon, a light wheat ale from Bell’s Brewery.

Bell's Oberon - Look at all that tasty yeast

Cracked open, the first whiff hints at malt, oranges, and other citrusy goodness. The Oberon flies out of the bottle as a highly viscous and very pale yellow ale with a giant foamy head that would make dish soap jealous. A typical ale, the nose is mostly barley with a slight hint of sugary sweetness. The taste is enjoyable and slightly fruity, but the flavor is light and comes up very short of impressive, though it’s certainly drinkable. The real magic happens in the texture, and that is directly related to the amount of yeast crammed into the Oberon – the bottom of the bottle was coated with a good quarter inch of it, and you could see tiny little morsels of it suspended in a solution of yeasty goodness, neither moving, rising, nor sinking. The high amount of yeast in the bottle made for a very thin and highly carbonated beer – the fizzy feeling one gets from drinking cheap champagne made the Oberon very enjoyable for what it is. The yeast content was a very nice touch and for that alone, it is worth checking out.

Bell's Oberon Ale

Overall, the Oberon is not spectacular, but the high amount of yeast was a pleasant surprise to find in a type of beer that I don’t normally drink. If it wasn’t for the yeast, this would be any other beer I was happy to try something new by sticking with the Oberon, but I would pass it up for more familiar beers if I was shopping on a budget. I found several 120z bottles of the Oberon at Papago Brewery for $1.50, and I’ve seen it sold in six-packs in the Valley for about $7.