Bards Tale Dragons Gold

Brewed by Gordon Biersch Brewing Company
Style: Specialty Grain
Palo Alto, California USA

12 oz Bottle-poured a golden color w/almost no head. Light fruity aroma. Definite creamy flavor unlike anything I have ever had-kind of thick & chewy, but not in a good way like a Stout. I guess that’s the sorghum-whatever that is. Very odd brew-this is the first Cream Ale I’ve had so I’m not sure if this is due to the style or the fact that there is no wheat, barley, grain. or rye in this beer-as they brag on the label. That’s a lot of stuff to leave out of your beer, and this beer tastes like it’s missing a lot of stuff. Wouldn’t recomend this one.

Bland yeast aroma. Golden body with no head. Bitter grain swill beer flavor. Overly bitter on the palate. YUCK!

Crystal clear pale yellow color with smallish pure white head that dissipates quickly. Aroma is very white-grape/wine like in quality, fruity notes of apricot/peach, touch of honey. Flavor also is very grape juice like, fair amount of honey, with a relatively sweet finish. Interesting, not a particularly good beer, but always interesting to taste an unusual beer ingredient.

The label on this beer is more interesting than the contents.After opening the bottle and pouring this into my pilsner, I stared at the label and felt like I should be with Frodo Baggins enjoying a pint. The sweet smell of apples (?) suprised me. I took a sip and noticed heavy carbonation and again, apples. I have never tried a Sorghum lager so I am assuming this is why I can’t place this taste. This is a nice change of pace, but I’ll leave this one to the hobbits.

(12oz bottle, bottled 5/30/06) Clear apple juice body topped by small but frothy off-white head. Aroma is medium sweet, bread, herbal tea, peach. Taste is medium sweet, bread, lime, some nectarine. Light body. Not saying that it’s particularly good, but it’s much better than New Grist, another sorghum beer, which I tried immediately before this one.

This beer is a clear gold color with a thin and fizzy ivory colored head that burns out almost immediately. Very little lacing to be found. Aroma of grain and malt. Light-bodied with a sweet flavor which mainly comes from the sorghum. There is some malt and sour fruit as well. The finish is syrupy sweet with honey and sorghum. Didn’t enjoy this one too much.

2006 bottle drunk on 10/5/06
Fizzy, eggshell colored head shows poor to medium retention, while the utterly clear body is full of large, aggressive bubbles. A warm butter colored bodied also has slight copper and pale gold tints. Little/no lacing.
Slightly sourish nose is full of what smells like corn, though I suppose it’s the sorghum. Unusual flavors of vanilla wafers, plant stalks and light hay emanate from the liquid as well, nothing very attractive or particularly cohernt, however. Nor is the aroma exactly leaping from the glass.
Chewy sorghum grains are mostly dry, with a breadiness and light sourdough hints towards the finish. Corn meal, grits and/or pretzels all come to mind, while bits of dry hay are still notable, paralleling the aroma. I guess those are the hops.....Very fizzy, heavily aerated texture with just too much butter/corn/plant. I just had a sorghum beer and it was nothing like this, so you can’t blame the grain. No alcohol apparent, seemingly poor extraction and filtering wreak havoc here. To the drain with you.....

This bottled brew from a bottle shop marked bollted on 9:43 BT001 05/30/06 poured a small sized head of foamy finely sized white colored bubbles that were mostly diminishing and left behind a transparent typically carbonated orange colored body and a fair lacing. The funky aroma was dirty. The mouth feel was tingly at the start and at the finish. The strange off flavor contained notes of mild spice. A horrible one that I would not buy again. Just too weird for my tatstes!