Today’s beer review of my 50 beer challenge is from a brewery that has gotten a lot of attention lately, most of which seems to be fairly negative. Goose Island, based in Chicago, IL, was recently sold to Anheuser-Busch which left a lot of beer snobs crying party foul. To me however, I love good beer so as long as the quality remains, I’m fine with it.
I chose to try out Matilda after visiting my local bottle shop and realizing that I’ve never had any Goose Island brews. Since there has been a lot of talk about them recently on the web, I figured I would give it a try even though Matilda has been around awhile.
What can I say, I’m a sucker for Belgian style ales.
The bottle of Matilda, which was from 2010, poured a hazy amber/orange color that was almost glowing. I poured it straight down the middle of the glass and was surprised to see that there wasn’t much head at all. The 1/10″ or so of head that was there disappeared so quickly that I don’t really know what color it was. There was some visible carbonation bubbles, but they were pretty tough to see through the cloudiness.
The aroma was full of citrus, honey, white grapes, yeast, and some pale malts. It was like a candy store opened up shop in my nose.
Matilda tastes pretty good. Upfront there is definitely some apple and pear flavors mixed with citrus, and then the flavor turns more to a white grape and yeast mix where you can really tell that the alcohol is there.
The only thing I didn’t really like about this beer is the mouthfeel. Maybe it was just this bottle, but it felt a bit over carbonated which was somewhat distracting from the flavor. Every time I took a drink my mouth felt almost like I just downed a package of pop rocks and it tingled all over.
Overall this was a pretty decent beer that I would definitely suggest you try, especially if you like fruity types of brews.
My Goose Island Matilda Review: A-
Here are the details:
ABV: 7%
IBUs: 32
Style: Belgian Style Pale Ale
What’s your thoughts on Goose Island Matilda?
