Dec 2, 2013

Goose Island Ten Hills Pale Ale

Last week, I was lucky enough to receive two sneak peak bottles of Goose Island’s Ten Hills Pale Ale — which actually hits shelves today in select markets. This 6.2% ABV American pale ale is the first of three new limited release series coming from Goose Island. Each beer in the series will feature hops that were harvested from Idaho’s Elk Mountain Farms.

Ten Hills Pale Ale uses a blend of perle, cascade and saaz hop varieties in its brewing. This particular beer doesn’t lean too heavily on those hops, however, as a solid malt backbone supports this well-balanced and easy drinking beer quite nicely. The blend of hops do bring a nice bit of herbal notes, light grapefruit and soft pine to this tasty brew.

Appearance

Ten Hills poured slightly hazy and deep amber in color with a resilient cap of off-white foam.

Goose Island Ten Hills Pale Ale photo

Aroma

A solid amount of grapefruit, soft pine and an herbal hop quality fill the nose immediately as a lighter amount of caramel and toasted bread bring up the rear.

Taste

This is a pretty darn good beer. The hop character isn’t overly fruity/citrusy as some and brings a grassy, earthy and herbal quality to the palate. There’s a moderate amount of hop bitterness that feels to be at just the right level and is countered well by a light malt sweetness, grain and toasted bread. The beer drinks smoothly with a soft bit of warmth in the chest that lingers lightly after the clean finish.

Goose Island Ten Hills Pale Ale photo

Overall

There’s nothing all that “extreme” with this Goose Island beer as, say, with a bottle of Gillian (review soon) that I just recently enjoyed. Ten Hills Pale Ale is a well crafted, approachable and easy drinking beer — plain and simple. It has a welcome hop character that isn’t wholly unique, but also certainly doesn’t get lost in the crowd and the balancing malt characteristics is spot on.

Rating: 3.75/5

This is a review of a promotional sample from the brewery.

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