Michelob Pale Ale: Good Effort That Falls Short
Written: Oct 27 '05 (Updated Dec 14 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good foam level; Pleasant enough taste
Cons: Too mild overall
The Bottom Line: This beer is ok, but it has the potential to be something much greater.
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| Bryan_Carey's Full Review: Michelob Pale Ale |
I love a good pale ale and I am always anxious to sample a new product. Whether it’s an American Pale Ale, an English version, or some other national style, this type of beer is often just the taste I’m looking for when I want to savor the good taste of hops. One company that makes many different beer products but isn’t known for pale ale is Anheuser- Busch. Its product in this category is Michelob Pale Ale, a mild pale ale from the “super premium” Michelob family.
Basic Characteristics of This Beer:
This beer is orange/tan in color and a good pour produces a creamy white head of foam that isn’t huge, but has a good amount of staying power nonetheless. The aroma of this beer is weak, and what little smell I could detect combines scents of bread with a small amount of hops. There was a small amount of sourness in the nose, too.
Flavors in this beer are slight. I could detect some citrus- mostly orange- and a little bit of apple at the end. There is a bit of a biscuit and caramel taste with the malt body but, again, it isn’t very pronounced. The beer finishes clean and crisp, with a slight hop flavor that goes from bitter to a tad sour as you consume.
Brewed with an all- malt recipe that includes caramel malt and two- row barely malt (no rice or adjuncts); Pacific Northwest, Hallertau, Saaz, and Tettnang hops, this pale ale uses some good ingredients, but in smaller amounts than most other pale ale. The alcohol level by volume is 5.2 percent and there are 173 calories and 16.9 grams of carbs in every 12 oz. serving.
Food Compatibility:
This pale ale could be consumed alongside a juicy steak, ribs, and other red meats. Beef seems to be the natural choice for this beer, even if it’s a less than perfect example of the style.
Final Thoughts:
Anheuser- Busch has been brewing a few craft beer imitation products over the past few years and most of them are middle- of- the- road at best. Michelob Pale Ale is no exception. It is a mild version of an American Pale Ale; a stripped down version that takes the fuller, hoppier taste of a finely toned American Pale Ale and reduces it to a beer that retains some of the character that points toward pale ale on the beer spectrum, but not enough of the character to make it a great product.
Starting with the aroma, this beer could be characterized as deficient. The nose isn’t very strong and it does nothing to whet the appetite. I admit the appearance is nice, with a good amount of foam that even leaves legs on the sides of your glass. But beyond that, this beer keeps the drinker asking “why isn’t there more of this?”, or “why did the brewers forget this?”. When you look at the list of quality ingredients, it seems like this beer has the potential to be very good- tasting. But brewers at Anheuser- Busch, in their efforts to appeal to the widest base of drinkers possible, took away any chance of producing a great beer by reducing the amounts of ingredients used in the process. They had the football in their hands and were running at full speed from deep in their own territory, only to fumble the ball at midfield.
Because of its mildness, this beer makes a good choice of pale ale for someone who is new to the style or someone who doesn’t appreciate (or like) the more pronounced taste of hops often present in American Pale Ale. It’s also good for those who are sick and tired of the overuse of Cascade hops in American pale ale. There is some citrus taste present here, but it is nothing compared to some of the west coast pale ales that are infused with massive doses of Cascades.
Anheuser- Busch products are not generally known for greatness, but there is one fact about this beer that I find shocking: It actually won the Gold Medal in the English style pale ale category at the 2005 Great American Beer Festival! My astonishment with this award winning performance is similar to the way I felt yesterday, when I tasted and reviewed Michelob Marzen and discovered that it, too, won a Gold Medal at the same festival. I know that many of the nation’s best beers are not entered in this contest, but I find it hard to imagine that this was the best pale ale in the bunch. If this was the winner, I hate to think what the other entries tasted like.
This beer was first introduced a few years ago and has been brewed each year as part of a special release. I have tried this beer before but did not compose a review until today. I was able to get my bottles from the Michelob 18- pack sampler: A larger package than includes three bottles each of six different styles, with two pilsner glasses (something offered this year that may or may not be continued into the future) and some recipe cards (with recipes using the different brews). I have not seen Michelob Pale Ale packaged any other way this year besides the 18- pack sampler.
Well, this brings me to the end of another review of one of the Michelob specialty line of brews. Once again, I feel about the same way toward this ale as I have toward the others in this series. They are all brewed with some degree of craftsmanship and some degree of quality. But Michelob Pale Ale, like the others, doesn’t have enough of a good thing to make it a great beer. Also, once again, it isn’t a bad beer at all. It falls in that same middle ground that the other Michelob specialty beers fall.
In summary, Michelob Pale Ale is a good, but far from great, malt beverage. It does have some good qualities, but these are balanced out almost one for one with the negative qualities. It makes Michelob Pale Ale an acceptable beer, but nothing that should ever earn rave reviews and one that is certainly not worthy of a Gold Medal at the GABF or any other beer festival.
Be sure to Click the Links Below to Read Reviews of Other Anheuser- Busch Products:
Budweiser:
Budweiser
Bud Light
Bud Ice
Bud Ice Light
Budweiser Select
Michelob Products:
Michelob
Michelob Light
Michelob Ultra
Michelob Amber Bock
Michelob Black & Tan
Michelob Honey Lager
Michelob Marzen
Michelob Pumpkin Spice
Other Anheuser- Busch Beers:
Winter’s Bourbon Cask Ale
Busch
Busch Light
Natural Light
Natural Ice
Anheuser World Select
Recommended:
Yes
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