Moa Pale Ale
Moa is probably my favourite of the middle class NZ breweries (somewhere between big commercial brewery and small craft brewery). All their beers are good, but not many are great (well that's really only true of the ones you find in the supermarket; some of their Belgian and other specialty smaller batch beers are amazing). They're also one of the few (the only?) of these middle class breweries (I guess the first wave of modern NZ craft breweries) that haven't been bought out by a big corporation, and the only brewery on the NZ stock exchange (what!? You can own a bit of the NZ craft beer industry?!).
Anyway, to the beer. This is billed as a pale ale, but it has a sort of unusual hop line up of NZ, American and German hops. There is a sneaking earthy hint of German hops somewhere in there, but the NZ and US hops didn't really come through for me. German hops are not typical for pale ale (especially in NZ), and with that being the dominant hop flavour I didn't really get a pale ale vibe. There is a slight bitterness and it is overall smooth and very drinkable, but I initially just didn't like it cause it doesn't taste like a pale ale. It eventually clicked with me that if I completely ignored the label and had no preconceptions, it's actually really nice, and tastes like a German style Pils more than anything else. It's light like a lager (even though it must me made with an ale yeast) and it has very little hop aroma other than the earthy German hops. The bitterness is really quite Pils-y too. So I had another can the next day, thinking of it as a German Pils, And I really enjoyed it. I guess it's a reflection on how preconceived ideas can influence an experience significantly. And that beer labelling and styles matter! I do like the gold print on the can, but.
Wife Check: [couldn't convince her to have a sip]
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