Little Creatures Bright Ale

Brewed by Little Creatures Brewing
Style: Golden Ale/Blond Ale
Fremantle, Australia

Serve in English pint, Shaker

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Little nose with this beer and the appearance is clear golden colour. Not a very bitter beer, but it is well balanced. Just doesn’t offer much for a hop head.

a nicer change from the mainstream beers however i wonder what will happen to the recipe and brew processes now that Lion Nathan own the company.

Bottle. A disappointing addition to the stable. Seems a bit half-hearted. The floral and fruity aromas of LC are there somewhere, but the volume is turned way down. Not that it’s more subtle, just that it’s less good.

Had this on tap in numerous places in Sydney. Pretty clean, with some soft aromatic, fruity hops (grapefruit, lychee), just seems a little clean and thin in the end, while remaining quite pleasant to drink.

Pint bottle. Poured the promised ’bright’ golden colour with a ready, yeasty aroma. The taste is very different, with fruity hops dominating. Just what fruit is hard to pin down, but it has a bit of stone-fruit about it. Finishes dry but short. Decent light ale, but I’ve had better.

It is hard to put bias to one side when reviewing a Little Creatures beer. Given that their Pale Ale stands as one of the best beers in Australia, any new release is going to have a bit to live up to. In this case, the Bright Ale, what is it? Nothing is given away on the label at all so it is really a case of open and see. How would I describe it? Probably an easier drinking version of their Pale Ale or a Golden Ale. The aroma is a honey/lemon aroma which is a tad sweet and finishes off with bitterness easily summed up as a watered down version of the Pale Ale. The palate is also a tad thin for my liking. On it’s own merits, the beer just passes, but it is really a bit of a nothing beer to make it memorable. I am concerned that Marketing may be driving this brewery now because this is almost brewed to target a demographic than create something truly memorable.

If aesthetics count for anything this beer doesn’t cut the mustard. Thin rocky head disappears in a nano second. Lightish amber in colour with a orange, rusty tinge. Unremarkable and quite macro in appearance. Sweet malts on the nose, subtle and simple. Palate is essentially light and bland. Light malts, so clean and crisp I could almost accuse it of being filtered. Finishes like a golden ale, almost Coopers Pale like, with that yeasty, minerally finish. Just going. Call me un-Australian but I think these guys live off the success of the Pale Ale too much….the other beers have continually failed to match that (slightly over-rated) flagship.

Some passionfruit and musk in the aroma, the latter being more obvious on tasting. Quite bland in the mouth, with a little bitterness saving the day. Medium bodied, some slight carbonation, and a passion-pop aftertaste finish it off. As bluevegie says, a slightly better version of the JS hop thief.

Bottle Aroma is faint but american APA in nature. Flavour is un pronounced and hoppy, dry, while not giving a truly pleasnat bitterness. A decent quencher.

15th September 2011
Clear gold beer, residual white head. Crisp palate, semi dry. Mild lactose in the pale malt. Trace amount of hops. Finishes semi dry. Bland.