SKA True Blonde Ale

Brewed By: SKA Brewing in Durango, Colorado

Purchased: Single CAN (12oz) from SKA mix pack bought at Binny's in IL; 2011

Style/ABV: Golden Ale/Blonde Ale, 5.3%

This is ska.

Music was my first love, way before beer or any other personal interests in-between. It turns out that I did go through a ska phase, and occasionally relapse into old Bad Manners, Skankin' Pickle, and Mustard Plug albums. Most third wave ska is pretty bland, and you might have trouble telling some bands apart, but I was always a big fan of Hot Stove Jimmy, the Blue Meanies, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Streetlight Manifesto, and the Voodoo Glow Skulls. At this point I'm just throwing out band names to wax nostalgia and show off my knowledge of ska, so I'll stop.

SKA Brewing are all about the ska, from the design of their website to the Toasters' songs playing in the background on the homepage. In fact, they even released a special Toasters 30th Anniversary IPA. The website is pretty bitchin'...and while I usually get annoyed by websites that have music playing in the background, the site is playing music by the Toasters. The freaking Toasters, yo. It's such a feel-good nostalgia trip it is hard to hate. Flipping through the cool comic animations on SKA Brewing's website will give you a lot of cool brewery information (like that it was founded in 1995) as well as information on their beer.

Can-Can. Yes I can. Can.

 

Tonight's beer is not the first SKA beer I have tried. My first experience with SKA was back over winter when I had SKA's Euphoria. The Euphoria was a skankin' good beer. Actually, I had it during a snowy period and I would say it was the perfect winter Pale Ale. It was full of fresh pine notes and would be the appropriate vessel to accompany me down a mountain while snowboarding. Of course I don't snowboard, and have zero coordination, so I'll just live vicariously through the beer.

 

The gimmick here is that the Euphoria and today's beer, the True Blonde Ale, come from a can. I'm pretty sure that SKA has or does release these beers in bottle form, but I have mostly seen SKA beer distributed via can in the northern Midwest. That's cool though, because cans are awesome. Craft beer and canned beer don't really go hand-in-hand, and you usually find cheap stuff like Miller High Life donning a can. But canned beer has some clear advantages over bottled beer. For starters, canned beer is shielded from light better than any bottle. Second, the can is smaller and more compact than a bottle, doesn't break, and seems easier to transport. You also don't need a bottle opener to open a can. 

So why don't more breweries put their beer in a can? My guess (and I honestly don't know) is that canning beer requires more work than putting it in a bottle. I assume that at the end of the day can production costs more, or is harder to implement. At any rate, let's roll forward with this ska party. While you can drink straight from the can, I still like to give my beer a proper pour. This beer pours alright, and kind of resembles a lager. That makes sense, since American Blonde Ales are kind of like the American craft scene's take on the German Kölsch. The beer pours with a really nice golden color. This beer is filtered, completely transparent, and full of bubbly carbonation. There was a 2-finger head immediately following the pour, but it has winded down to a nice 1-centimeter covering. The head is white in color, and isn't very thick or creamy. It has the consistency of the dish soap bubbles and is kind of thin and web-like.

Don't let the bastard grind you down.

So how does it smell? There honestly isn't a ton of aromatics. The first thing I pick up is a bit of can...I know, I know...you shouldn't be able to smell the can, and maybe it is strictly the placebo effect. The only way to know for sure would be to do a blind testing comparison with can vs. bottle. The thing is, I have smelled hundreds of beers (creepy, I know), so I would hope I could determine if something came from a bottle or can. I pick up some light grain or corn on the nose, a light amount of caramel, and maybe some apple or pear.

The taste is fairly underwhelming, with a lot of grain and malt supporting this beer. It's quite creamy and feels really smooth in the mouth, which may or may not be a good thing. It kind of reminds me of a light lager or a cream ale. Some of the apple and pear comes through in the taste, but it is mostly a grainy affair with a slightly astringent biting character that is dominating the finish; it's sort of spicy and reminds me a bit of that ginger-spice character in some lagers. The malt part of the backbone is caramel, sweet, sugary, maybe honey.

This is a light beer that is a step above a lot of adjunct lagers. You could probably recommend this to your IPA-hating friend. It doesn't have any complexity, but the smooth and creamy mouthfeel helps this beer extend to medium depths on your palate. This would be a lot more fun to drink if there wasn't that biting finishing note. The front end is carbonation and grain; the middle is grain and malt; the back end is malt, grain, and that slightly astringent ginger-spice note. It finishes kind of spicy and sharp on the back end. Although the overall profile is a bit watery and thin, the other stuff kind of works.

Rating: Below-Average

Score: 30%

 

This is not the ska party advertised on the can. As I just finished off this glass of beer, I have decided that the astringent ginger-spice note is actually Windex. Yes, I think I got a note of Windex. Now, I like science, so I'll acknowledge the variables. Maybe this beer was engineered to be consumed out of a can and I unfairly shafted this beer by pouring it into a glass. Perhaps my expectations are too high, after all this is a beer in a can. 

But I'll call bullshit. SKA's Euphoria and Modus Hoperandi are both really good: and they come from a can. This beer just misses the mark for me. It has some funky astringency, it doesn't have an aromatic nose, it is grainy and not in a good way, and it just doesn't stack up well compared to other Golden Ales. It's kind of an underwhelming experience, and I would not buy this beer again.

 

To conclude: if you see a 6-pack of SKA's True Blonde, you may want to consider an alternate Blonde Ale. If you are hesitant to try the SKA mix pack because this beer is in it, buy the mix pack anyway. SKA's Modus Hoperandi is delicious and their ESB Ale isn't that bad either. 

Skip this one, and go have yourself a beer.