July 21, 2014

Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp 2014: Chico King Pale Ale (brewed with Three Floyds Brewing in Munster, Indiana)

Brewed By: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California 
Purchased: Single 12oz bottle from the 2014 Beer Camp bought at Jewel-Osco in Chicago, IL; 2014 (PKG 05/15/14)
Style/ABV: American Pale Ale, 6.5%
Reported IBUs: 45

What is Beer Camp? It is Sierra Nevada's celebration of craft beer and the numerous breweries across America that make that craft beer. For 2014, Sierra Nevada collaborated with 12 different breweries to make 12 different beers. They also have a Beer Camp Across America Beer Festival, which will stop at seven different cities and feature many different breweries and beers.

About Sierra Nevada:
Sierra Nevada are one of the big players in craft brewing, and one of the first craft breweries to arrive on the craft beer scene. If you check out their history page, you will see that founder Ken Grossman began his quest to build a brewery in 1976. In 1980, Ken Grossman and co-founder Paul Camusi brewed their first batch of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. According to Wikipedia, Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale is the second best selling craft beer behind Boston Lager. Sierra Nevada is the sixth largest brewing company in the United States as well, cranking out over 750,000 barrels in 2010. For more info, check out their website.
The Chico King Pale Ale was brewed with those tourist loving rascals at Three Floyds. My bottle says: "3 Floyds has a reputation as the Midwestern kings of alpha (hops), and it seems our flagship beer helped lure them down the lupulin-paved path. Chico King is a mash-up of our mutual passion for hoppy pale ales and we suspect you'll find it fit for royalty." 

This one pours a hazy, dark orange nearing copper, color. It's almost reddish-orange. There is good carb; tiny bubbles with big streams. This pours with two fingers of caramel head and has good lacing. Folks, it looks like an IPA/Pale Ale.
Chico King Pale Ale

The aroma here is big caramel and hops. I'm getting orange, rind, and pine. Big pine. There's a big forest aroma that smells like pine, woody dankness, wet hops, and cabin. If a beer embodied camping, this is it. Like RuinTen's caramel meets Bell's Two Hearted. Bitter lemon is buried beneath the orange-wood-pine thing. This will age into iced tea as that note is already on the nose.

The taste has big malty embrace, caramel, orange, and pine hops. I'm getting crushed wet leaves, and hints of iced tea. This was packaged 5/15/14, making it two months old...that's just me fishing[or is it phishing?] for excuses to justify this boring Pale Ale.

This is well-made, of course, with good balance between the malts and hops...it makes okay use of the 6.5%, and good use of the 45 IBUs. This is medium-bodied, average in terms of palate depth, and average in terms of compelxity. Up front: caramel malts and orange; pine and crushed leaves in the middle; sweeter tea and pine sap fades to caramel-hops in the back.

Rating: Average (3.0/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Light Average on this beer. This is FFF phoning it in. Super average. It's kind of weak in a collaboration package like this, IN MY OPINION. So...just another Pale Ale from Triple-F. You either can applaud that, or admit it could have been more intriguing. 


Random Thought: At least they couldn't shove this in a bomber and charge $10~$20 for it. Space Station Middle Finger should have come in a 6-pack for the same price that the bomber cost. Cot Dang. 

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