Pale Ale – American: Odell St Lupulin

This week we have the summer seasonal offering from Odell Brewing. Odell are part of the exciting Colorado brewing scene, and none of the beers I have had that are produced by them have disappointed.

I chose this beer because Pale ales are great to drink in Autumn and Summer, and as we go into Autumn with the weather still being warm this beer is perfect.

Let’s start with Odell’s description of the beer:

A mystical legend echoes in our brewhouse – that of St. Lupulin (loop-you-lin) the archetypal hophead. He devoted endless summers to endless rows of hops, tending to the flowers and the beloved resin within – lupulin. Extraordinary oils in this yellow resin provide this dry-hopped extra pale ale with an undeniably pleasing floral aroma and clean, crisp finish. One sip of this seasonal summer ale and you too, will believe.
Available May through September

It’s always nice to have a story along with a beer along with hints of the flavour, and Odell have always been very good with that. St. Lupulin truely is a crisp, refreshing beer and great for after a long day at work or indeed drinking in the garden on a hot day/humid evening. At 6.5% you probably could session it, but not as much as some other Pale Ales offered.

I recently e-mailed Odell about their recipes and they were willing to tell me some of the details of the ingredients for a few of their beers, which is nice. Some brewers keep their recipies under wraps, even when you e-mail them! The malts used in this beer are Pale Malt, ESB Malt, Vienna, and Caramalt – a great malt backbone for a Pale Ale in my opinion. It’s nice seeing a few british malts in this brew. As for the hops, Cascade, Perle and dry-hopped with Centennial. I think this is a really good, sensible hop bill for an (extra) Pale Ale brewed for Summer/Early Autumn as the Cascade and Centennial hops provide that nice floral, fruity taste and the Perle provide a nice clean, crisp, almost lager like taste to the brew. Odell have come up with a great recipe for this one.

This beer pours a russet gold colour and is slightly cloudy, leaving a great head even when not poured vigorously which sticks around for a long time until it slowly dissipates leaving some nice film on the glass along with a thin cap. The smell of this beer is quite complex for a Pale Ale, hints of honey, crisp malted barley which is balanced well with the floral, citrus and some pine aromas from the hops. There’s also some subtle spice which is nice. The taste is a clean malty flavour to start, which then fades into some citrus, subtle grapefruit and a little pine. It’s definitely quite hoppy as far as Pale Ales go, but still crisp and refreshing like a lager. It’s extremely well balanced. The beer is almost velvet-like and is very smooth. It finishes very crisp. An extremely refreshing brew indeed.

You can purchase Odell St. Lupulin in the UK at:

Beers Of Europe

Honest Brew

Beer Ritz (In Stock!)

Amazon

As always, a google search is good too!

Unfortunately there is no distribution for Odell in the UK, but if you’re a bar or a shop Beer Ritz does offer 24 bottles of this sesonal ale.

 

EST. CALORIES: 195   ABV: 6.5%