Hello and welcome back to the Eternal Hoptimists,
The eagle-eyed readers of our reviews will know that our reviewer Peter has a couple of favourite sayings. Being an ex-accountant the first is ‘How much?’ and his other favourite is ‘Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should’. I can just imagine him now saying the latter as he reads this review.
Why, may you ask? Well, that is because this review is of a Cucumber cream ale (yes, that’s right) named cucumber blessings. The beer is brewed by Mill House Brewing Company from New York and is accompanied by a decent back story that says, ‘Our award winning beer is inspired by a yearly tradition where Buddhist priests hold a cucumber blessings ceremony to help their village through the long hot days of summer.
So, its from a brew pub in New York and is award winning. But is this convincing me that it will be any good?
1. Name : Cucumber Blessings
2. Brewery: Mill House Brewing Company (Poughkeepsie, NY. United States)
3. Hops : Liberty
4. Grain : Barley, Yeast & Oats
5. Aroma : Certainly smells of cucumber. Fresh and clean on the nose with a light hop edge cutting through.
6. Appearance : Pours a hazy straw colour with a one finger white head
7. Body : Light to medium body with a smooth and very fresh mouthfeel
8. Taste : Big initial hit of cucumber that lingers on the palate. The Liberty hop adds balance and gives this a nice subtle hit of zesty hop bitterness to create a rather pleasant beer.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should…. but I have to say Mill House Brewing Company on this occasion I am glad you did! Cucumber Blessings is certainly novel, but it works.
I have only ever had one cucumber beer before and I described that one as like drinking salad, however Cucumber Blessings is much better balanced than that one and has a very pleasant flavour profile with the cucumber flavours to the fore and a nice use of Liberty hops to make this rather nice indeed.
I picked this one up out of curiosity as I am sure that many others have too and like myself, I have a feeling that many of those will also have felt that Cucumber Blessings is a very pleasant surprise. This is a beer that I will certainly look to pick up again.
Our overall rating: 3.8/ 5.0
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