New Belgium Springboard Ale

Brewed by New Belgium Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

Given them credit for trying something original. I’m not sure we should be giving them credit for coming up with something good. What an unusual beer this is. Has cloudy, pale yellow color, with a herbal aroma. You can taste a little hops, and the wormwood, with a little light smokey flavor in the background, like smoked tea. (Is that the gojo berries and schisandra?) The taste isn’t for everyone, and hard core hop-heads will probably not like it. All the tinkering with different woods gives this a slightly woody taste, which I didn’t find to be a good thing. A complex taste to be sure, but it hit and missed with all the different flavor notes. Goes down very smooth, and is slightly creamy on the tongue. Would taste good with fish or Japanese food.

Bottle. Hazy golden beer with thin white head. Smells of woody apples. Flavor is mild, crisp and resfreshing like a spring ale should be. Odd herb and spice flavors. Dry finish, not very bitter. My friend, a Bud drinker, says it tastes like sweat socks.

bottle - Pours a lightly hazy golden with a one finger white head. The aroma is of pale malts and light citrus. It tastes of bready malt, mild hops, a touch of citrus, and just a little hint of some kind of herbal something or other. It’s light and a little thin with a mildly dry finish. Detecting a theme? It’s a light, easy going beer. The herbal whatzits are barely noticeable. Whatever a goji berry or schisandra is, I don’t get it. I wouldn’t expect brewing just 2% of the beer in oak barrels to be noticeable and it isn’t. So yeah, it’s good for a session beer but doesn’t taste nearly as complex as the description sounds.

2008 Bottle - Rather off aroma, first sip was nice - malty, grainy, grassy, but it seemed to get heavier as I drank, more bitter, finished with some herbal nuance, kinda strange brew, and I would probably go with another beer to define my spring...New Belgium, in my opinion, is trying to replace real innovation (i.e. all of their beers a few years ago) with just adding a bunch of weird shit to beer and expecting their loyalists to proclaim it as wonderful, WTF is a goji berry?

~ Pours a cloudy plae yellow colour with small diminishing head. ~ Citrus hoppy scent. Refreshing scent. ~ Smooth citrus flavor. A bit biscuity similar to Fat Tire, but not as profund. ~Light abrupt finish. ~ This is a nice light refreshing beer. Perfect on a hot summer day.

Pours a translucent blond with a thin white head. Not much of an aroma, a little malty. The beer has some earthy spice, and a weird bitterness to it. Overall, it is decent, a little strange, but decent.

Pours a golden yellow color, with a sparse head that leaves little lacing. Aroma is of spices with hints of malt. Flavor is malty with almost no hops to speak of, and a spicy, vegetable like bitterness in the back. Very good, especially on a hot day, would definitely recommend.

12oz bottle: pours hazy golden brown with decent white head, aroma just a hint of malt, flavor is pretty decent malty some added spice somewhat complex and belgian like. decent beer.