Octoberfest 2007 has come and gone and we sampled many, many, different types of beers. There were so many good beers, I can’t even begin to attempt to pick out my favorite. However, there was one that stood out… unfortunately, it stood out in a bad way.

Butternuts Porkslap Pale Ale had one of the funkiest tastes I have ever tasted. First off, it is barely a pale ale, but I don’t know how to classify it other than a specialty ale.

Butternuts tells us…

it a new interpretation if the English Pale Ale with a hint of fresh ginger spices

balanced, not overly bitter, easy to drink and incredibly refreshing

it pours orange and crystal clear with a frothy white head

I don’t know what the taste was, but it was funky; a bad funk. Perhaps it was a bad batch. Mine did not pour clear and had a weak head of foam supporting the “bad batch” theory. I didn’t taste ginger, unless what I did taste was supposed to be a hint of ginger. It is unfortunate.

My local beverage center now has a mixed twelve pack Butternut beers on the shelf — but I doubt I’m going try it even if this was a bad batch; consistency is just as important as taste. It is a factor of quality. I stopped buying the Saratoga Lager for the same reason.

Leave it to marketing and a cheap price that got me to taste it in the first place, but once bitten, twice shy.

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• Wolaver’s Pale Ale (0)

Wolaver’s, the Certified Organic brand from Otter Creek Brewing, has been brewing organic beers for ten years now. Organic beer has been getting a lot of attention lately, in no small part due to Anheuser-Busch getting into the game last year with their Wild Hop Lager and Stone Mill Pale Ale offerings. (Read Ron’s review of Wild Hop Lager.)

Organic beer was in the headlines recently as the USDA attempted to make rules regarding organic beer including this mind-boggler (inserted at the behest of A-B): Hops used in the beer could be non-organic and the beer could still be labeled “organic”, because hops aren’t a primary ingredient. Huh? In a product made with only four ingredients, I’d think they’d all be primary. There was a huge response from craft brewers and beer enthusiasts and the government has back-tracked a bit, but the issue still isn’t resolved.

But, that’s a topic for another discussion. Right now, I’d just like to try one of their beers. They say their Pale Ale…

…is a classic pale ale. Perfectly balanced; creamy and full bodied, with a rich malty flavor and a distinctive, crisp hoppy finish. Delicious with all foods, a great beer for all tastes.

It pours a nice medium amber color, with a decent-sized ivory-colored head. Nice gentle aroma, with a little bit of spice. Plenty of body, and I definitely get that hoppy finish. Pale Ale is probably my favorite style right now, and this one’s pretty good. That it’s organic and thus better for the planet makes it all the better. Worth a try.

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