Back when I first got into craft beer, Full Sail was one of the go to beers. Available everywhere, the Full Sail Amber was always a solid choice. As time passes, you forget your old stand-bys. So when I tried the LTD a few weeks ago, I felt it was about time I went through the Full Sail lineup again, to refresh my memory.
I decided to start with the IPA. This one had a nice color on the pour, golden and bright like an IPA should. The aroma was nice and hoppy, slightly floral, leading me to think there’s a nice beer waiting for me. Unfortunately, the color and aroma aren’t indicative of the brew. This IPA was rather thin and mild. I’ve had many better IPA. While there was nothing unpleasant about the beer, it ended up being too thin to be something I would buy again.
Next I moved on to the pale ale. The aroma was of vegetables and kind of funky. I couldn’t tell where the funky came from, the hops or the malt, but it was odd. Dark golden color almost amber, it was a little darker than I expected. This brew was a little sweet and full of that vegetable flavor. Not a whole lot of of hops, some light noble hops flavor in the end, but very mild. It does get better as you drink it, but not my favorite pale ale by a long shot. In the end, the taste is a little stale, but I’m still well within date on bottle.
To finish it up, I went with the old reliable Full Sail Amber. The amber, like the pale, seemed a little dark for the style, coming close to being a brown. In aroma and flavor, almost indistinguishable from the pale. A little more of a caramel, dark sugar sweetness than the pale, but everything else was more of the same. Again, I question the age of the bottle, but the date printed says I have months until it should “expire.”
So what do I think of Full Sail having gone through their standards lineup again? I’m not very impressed. I remember the amber being a very different beer. The others in the lineup were always weaker entries, but the amber has fallen back to the pack. For $1 per bottle, I’m not exactly sure what I should have expected, but I doubt I’ll be buying more, even at the discount price. It seems as if the Full Sail I once was a fan of has gone the way of their previous packaging, which they change on a regular basis. By the way, the old packaging was better as well.
