Pale Ale (Schlafly)

I'm going to start this post by saying that I've never liked Schlafly. Harsh, I know. I've tried different Schfly brews on at least 5 different occasions before this, and I never liked it. I tried their flagship beers, premium beers, special beers at beerfests, and have never enjoyed their beer. That being said, it was craft beer week, I was in St. Louis, and I was willing to give their PA another shot. I got a pint on tap at a local bar. It was served as it should be...in a plastic cup. Snarky comments are done; down to my general thoughts.

General Thoughts
Look and Smell: This brown-ish beer had a foamy head. It was a nice thick head that stuck around for a while. I could smell hops right off. Couldn't place them. Just that generic hop smell. A pretty light smell overall.

Taste: It tasted like malt and hops. It also had that beer taste. Like that rice beer taste. I hate to say it, but it's that taste...that taste that smacks of cheap beer. Maybe it's something in the water out in AB country. The malt and hops part wasn't bad. I just wasn't anything special. It was...that's it.

Trying not to be too harsh. I paid for the beer. Some people really love Schafly, it's just not my kind of beer. They are doing a good thing, bringing something other than Bud to the St. Louis pubs and tables.

From the Schafly site:

Our flagship Pale Ale is a smooth, balanced, copper-colored session beer with mildly spiced flavor and aroma from the East Kent Goldings hops. The bready, lightly caramel malt complements the hint of fruitiness contributed by the London Ale yeast, making it satisfying and authentic; the perfect flagship beer for Schlafly.

Sixteenth century brewers created amber beers by using a form of coal called coke to roast their grains. Coke burns hotter and steadier than wood without imparting the foul odors from coal. It allowed brewers to produce caramel malts that were paler alternatives to the common brown porters. At about the same time, Flemish migrants introduced hops to English beers and soon this ale became the chosen style of England from the mid-16th century until the end of the 20th century. Today, brewers outside of England have adopted the Pale Ale and made it one of the leading styles of the American craft beer movement.