The latest version of my Gondwana Pale Ale finished recently, but I managed to get a formal tasting in before the keg was emptied. Here’s the review!

• The Basics
  • Original gravity = 1.045; final gravity = 1.010; abv = 4.6%; estimated IBU = 39
•  Aroma
  • A strong impression of passionfruit for me, along with other tropical fruits; really nice on the aroma.
• Appearance
  • Wonderfully clear; there is a tiny bit of hop debris from the dry-hop bag, but that doesn’t get in the way of how nicely this beer has cleared. The beer itself is a light gold color, with a fine off-white head, that sticks around for quite awhile as a decent blanket over the beer, and then subsides to a persistent ring of foam around the edges of the glass.
• Flavor
  • There is a definite tropical fruit impression on the hops. The malt is clean, and in the background.
• Mouthfeel
  • This is a pretty dry beer–not overly so, but definitely dry. I’m not a huge fan of the finish on this–it is a bit astringent, and I’m not sure of the cause. Part of this could be due to an overly thin mash, or perhaps the mash-out temperature being too high initially? Or maybe it’s something with the hops? Is the IBU level more than anticipated? Could it be the relatively low starting gravity as compared to previous batches? I’m not sure. In any case, this is a bit different from previous batches, which were quite a bit smoother.
• Would I brew this again?
  • The aroma and appearance on this are pretty wonderful, and the flavor is decent. Mouthfeel and finish could really be improved, though. I think more careful attention to mash conditions (temperature and volumes) would help. Given my success with previous versions of the recipe, I’ll still be brewing it again.
• Overall
  • 5/10