Opened cold and poured hard from draft into a straight half. Clear copper under an off-white head that settles into an even cap.
The pale / munich bill carries the structure and Wet Chinook does the seasoning. At 5.4% and 42 IBU it sits where the style should, and Barnstormer Brewing have resisted the urge to push it anywhere else.
The Wet Chinook is extraordinary in the glass and merely good in the mouth. That is a small complaint about a beer doing most things right, but it is the reason this is not a nine.
The whole point of a beer at 5.4% is the second and third glass, and this survives both. There is no cloying edge, no fatigue in the finish, and the hop character stays legible right through. That is harder to achieve than a big beer, and it gets a fraction of the credit.
This is a perfectly competent beer with nothing much to say for itself, and there is no shame in that. At $5.20 / 473ml it is a reasonable trade. Whether you would choose it over the two better things beside it on the shelf is a different question.
Bought at Barnstormer Taproom (seasonal at the time of writing). Seasonal. Buy it in October and drink it in October.
Not a beer to seek out, but not one to send back either.
