Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale

copper, slightly cloudy with a frothy head. smooth velvety texture, like a cream candy.- but a little flat and lacks "presence". aftertaste is more barnyard than flower garden.

The perfect American Pale Ale. Citrus aroma, light-medium body. Very easy to drink, crisp, and refreshing. Balanced, with a nice, mild hop finish. Very nice!

Another winner on tap at Freakin Frog in Las Vegas. Very good APA with a nice lingering finish. Would order this again anytime.

I was highly unimpressed with this beer. To call this an American Pale ale is a farce in my book as it tasted almost like nothing...if it didn’t look so great and feel so good in my mouth I would drink it, move on and never come back. Nose is faint malt. Maris Otter...a little maybe. Crisp cracker like notes and a little bit of brwon sugar style sweetness...boring. Hops promised are nonexistent. If I didn’t get a fresh bottle this beer would maybe be great but as it stands it is awful...truly

Bottle. Orange pour with an off white head. Aroma of floral hops, light malt, and some lighter fruity elements. Flavor of floral hops, light malt and some citrus. Solid body and a nice amount of balance...finishes dry and bitter. Pretty tasty.

12 oz bottle. Pours a nice orange and copper tone with medium carbonation and big lacing. Aroma has strong floral notes with hints of grapefruit. Taste is similiar but with a light sweet malt presence. Nice balance, but a little light on the palate. There is a nice dry bitterness that lingers in the back. This is one of my regulars, great APA.

Bottled. Golden to amber color with small creamy head. Sweet, juicy, flowery, citrusy and parfumy aroma, pleasant. Balanced and malty aroma with flowery and orangey notes. Quality pale ale.

Deschutes’ Inversion IPA is high on my list of the most approachable pale ales. It doesn’t have all five shining stars of glory that my imaginative rating system permits as the maximum award, but it’s enough that I’d be happy to drink it again without fear that the hops would tear the first layer of skin from the roof of my mouth. It instilled in me a callow optimism that I had not felt since I first attempted to ride a bike. The ensuing collisions knocked that optimism (and a few critical organs) out of me, until now. Alas, I have come to another pale ale offering from Deschutes, and with eagerness I take a sip. With dread I swallow. It is another face in a sea of ashen gray faces. It is another drone in a cacophony of dull humming. It has but one remarkable feature. Detergent. I mentioned in my review of Deschutes’ Twilight Ale that it tasted a great deal like public sanitation vis-à-vis mildly fragrant soaps. This tastes like a hoppy version of that. I’m beginning to suspect that somebody is watching their very well lathered hands in the vat, leaving the beer bubbly and extra clean. Call me finicky, but I don’t want my beer the same way I want clean epidermis. Let’s look at Mirror Pond’s other qualities: within a bronze-honey colored hue a great column of bubbles wobbles to and fro like a swarm of bees. The head above is off white like day old snow, and leaves scattered but adhesive lacing. A strong punch of grapefruit greets the nose first, followed by white grapes and a bland bitterness that wrinkles the nostrils. The taste begins with strong push of grapefruit, then hits the soap stage, then abandons both to land effortlessly on a generic bread/yeast note. All the way through it is flat, watery and boring. Not to mention the, you know, soap lingering there. I think any beer that two-prongs the taste with detergent and grapefruit is lacking something in complexity. More than that, it’s lacking something appealing. No, I’ll be sticking to the Inversion IPA, thank you. Or was it that I just had a batch made before Mr. Bubble received gainful employment at Deschutes Brewery?