Moby Dreck? Harsh!

Brewery: Cisco Brewers
Location: Nantucket, MA
Name: Whale's Tale
Type: Pale Ale
ABV: 5.60%
Purchased from: Total Wine & More, VA Beach
Price: $1.70

I was having a hard time trying to figure out what I should drink. (If you want to see a picture of my current catalog, speak up). So I asked Tessa, she rarely ever gets into this but it seems as she was in a play-along type mood today. She told me to pick a bottle that had light blue on it. Fortunately for me, there are no Labbats or Pabsts in my fridge. She then had the choice of Massachusetts or Pennsylvania...so here we are. Whale's Tale is a nice shade of sunset with a little bit of auburn and a splash of copper for good measure. The head is a super tight, foamy, eggnog shaded cloud that wants to do nothing more than to hang around hoping you enjoy the bounty it rests lightly upon. There is a vast amount of carbonation that is easily noticeable. It looks as bubbly as champagne but imagine slower moving bubbles. The nose has a bread dough quality to it with a smattering of floral hops. There is also the strangest combination of red apples (not something I have come across before) and malt. Outside of that though, the bouquet was pretty standard. I feel like generic is too harsh of a word, especially with the red apples bit...so I'm sticking with standard. The carbonation provides a nice snap as you drink. The flavor profile isn't quite what I was expecting. You get a lot of floral hops up front, almost as if you were chewing on a flower. Then that slips away so that doughy bread and very light caramel malt taste comes through. Towards the back end the yeast brings out just a small amount of that apple flavor and then takes a turn into a flavor I can best describe as "mineral." It's very noticeable and, sadly, a little distracting. If you took that mineral quality away from Whale's Tale you'd be left with a pretty stand up pale ale. No tricks or turns or surprises, just a pretty good pale ale. It's a bit too floral for my tastes, in fact the only bitterness that the hops provide are in the aftertaste. In fact! The aftertaste is damn near a marzen with a thick splash of malted bread. But there are just a few things that detract from the overall experience. I just can't get past it.

I feel a blowhole joke in here somewhere.