Blue Buck Pale Ale

 

These days I'm happy to see any company take its environmental responsibilities seriously. I'm especially happy when small or mid size businesses do it because it would be easy for them to slide under the radar on environmental issues. Phillips Brewing has almost a dozen initiatives in play as they try to do business in a way that's friendly to the environment. There's the spent grain program, efforts to reduce water use, and labels made from recycled paper. 

They even recycle the CO2 produced by the fermentation process so they don't have to purchase CO2 produced by the fossil fuel industry. Phillips Brewing is a member of a local bottle pool program allowing them to use recycled bottles to bottle their beer. Over the course of the last 5 years, they even use 30% less water to make their beer. This is only a portion of what Phillips does to make the environment better. Blue Buck pours into my glass clear and the color of polished copper. Thin streams of CO2 support a dense, off white head with decent retention.

Up front, Blue Buck's aroma starts out malty; sort of a combination of caramel and crushed grain. Aromas of bread dough come out in the center, smoothing out those initial aromas somewhat. The doughy character combines with something smelling of fondant, of all things. These combine together well enough before moving into a finish that is peppery European hops.

My first sip reveals up front graininess, leading into barely present flavors of caramel. After the caramel, graininess becomes a more pleasant flavor of toasted grain. The caramel flavor intensifies a bit, cutting through the overall graininess before moving into a lasting bitter finish. Somehow there's a hint of sweetness providing a subtle through note as well.

All things considered, Blue Buck is not bad. I feel willing to give it a 6.5 out of 10. I find there could be room for improvement on one main front with this beer. Mainly, the flavors could have less graininess, more malt, and maybe some fruit esters. All things being equal, maybe a little more hop presence wouldn't hurt either.