New Belgium Springboard Ale

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

Bottle from BevMo. Hazy yellow appearance. Aroma is Mostly yeast and grain with a little spice. Smells like a tripel. Dry bitter flavor. Some odd spices in there. Like a spiced Belgian of some sort.

Light cream color with a nice head. Very well carbonated. Yeasty aroma, has some nice malt characteristics. Smooth creamy, yet tangy flavor. Ends in a nice sweet mouthfeel. Malt flavor is subtle. Spices profile seems to be well balanced if not overwhelming. Can’t put a finger on the wormwood or goji berries but i’m not having them very often. A nice refreshing beer for spring{summer here}.

Pours a hazy yellow color with a decent white head. Grassy aroma with a hint of malt. Some citrus as well. Malty spice flavor with a lemon zest kick to it. Easy beer to drink, and goes down fairly smoothly.

Pours with a hazy, straw-gold colored body and is topped by a frothy, initially three finger thick, pale, tan-tinted white head that leaves some lacing patterns on the sides of my tulip glass. The aroma is quite interesting; woody, herbal, sharply grassy, perhaps a touch mint-like and with an almost green leafy note to it. A touch of cracker-like malt character is towards the finish of the aroma, but only if you dig for it. There is some grassy grain character to it up front that sort of feeds into the interesting herbaceous notes. The aroma is quite light and spritzy though, if an aroma can be such.

The beer has a light, clean, pale-malt sweetness to it up front that morphs into a sort of light tartness by the finish. The taste is not nearly as herbaceous as the aroma suggested, but still there is some of that here. Grassy, with a touch of mint and a solid, though still relatively light, bitterness in the finish. Flavors are not over the top, but I get a sense of lemon grass, perhaps some basil at times, and something sharp like pepper or ginger. The carbonation adds some zesty spritz to this beer and in combination with the relatively light body, would make it quite appropriate for a hot summers day.

In this end this is a nice, refreshing beer that did not have the level of character that I was expecting from the label description. It almost seems like an American interpretation of a spiced Saison; the spicing is fairly subtle, and the American portion used a yeast that was a bit too clean. This beer might really shine if brewed with a funky yeast strain that was allowed to run wild. Something about this (really the spicing and grain), makes me think of this as a Belgian Wit derivative.

Purchased: <a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/Places/ShowPlace.asp? Liquors, Tucson, AZ

Bottle pours a pale yellow with a decent white head and some decent lace. The aroma is of some mild hops and malt. The flavor is sweet, fruity, and somewhat complex. There is a bitterness that comes not from the hops, perhaps the wormwood? Rather a little bit of everything here, but not enough pull in any specific direction to establish much. I don’t find it offensive in any stretch of the imagination, just not real appealing or impressive.

musty nose--earthiness and berries; hazy, yellow-straw body with a white and frothy, soapy head; thin, but creamy and smooth palate; common, lager-like flavor although different--like a spicy wheat, but with different spices; actually, i liked it.

12 oz. bottle from Plaza Liquor - Pours a slightly hazy straw color with a one finger thick white head. Light spotty lacing. Has a herbal hop and very slight citrus hop aroma. Has a slight spicey hop flavor with a touch of citrus. Light to medium body. An easy drinking beer. Not bad.

Tasted somewhere along my trip through the States.
Cloudy yellow colored brew. Spicy and herbal aroma. Flavor is herbal and grassy, spicy and sweet malty touch. Interesting.