Mystery Beer

I stopped by my local neighborhood bar the other day, and I noticed that there was a new offering among the seasonal taps. The board listed the new brew as "CBC Pale Kolsch." In this case, CBC would be the Carolina Brewing Company. (I have previously discussed the confusion caused by various breweries having "Carolina" in their name.) I did not find a "Pale Kolsch" among the regular rotation of seasonal beers or specialty beers included on the list of brews from CBC's website.

Their main page however does mention a special brew that was recently released. This new concoction is suppose to be a unique hybrid of a pale ale and a Kölsch-style ale. Similar to how Champagne is a sparkling wine that originates from the Champagne region of France, Kölsch is a style of ale that originates from Cologne, Germany. Similar brews from other locations are usually termed "Kölsch-style." (Wikipedia tells me that Kölsch is also a group of German dialects primarily spoken around Cologne.) I will assume that the beer that I enjoyed was this hybrid brew and I will consider this little mystery solved.

After some reflection about this brew, I would say that it was an interesting combination of two styles that occupy opposite ends of the beer spectrum. My enjoyment of the light, clean-tasting Kölsch style is well documented on this site. Equally well documented is my less enjoyment of overly hoppy brews such as pale ales, India pale ales (IPAs) and double IPAs. I found that CBC was successfully able to split the difference between the two types to create a Kölsch-style ale with a nice touch of hops flavor.