on THE TAPHANDLE

Curve Ball Summer Seasonal, a Blonde Ale by Pyramid Breweries

22 ounce bottle, served in English pint, $1.58 per pint.

I wrote a brief review about this ale on RateBeer in December 2006. It reads, in its entirety: "12 ounce bottle. This is nothing spectacular. A small, fizzy head that quickly departed. A nice golden color. Aroma of floral hops and lightly of grain or straw. Rather mild, sweet flavor that doesn’t stay around for very long."

I would like to reassess my relationship to this beer for two primary reasons: (1) Pyramid has done its own overhaul of the ale, and (2) I am a different beer drinker than I was two-and-one-half years ago. The brewer is in a different place than they once were, as am I.

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The pour provides a bright yellow body of sparkling clear beer. It is topped with a very rocky white head that departs quickly into oblivion, never to leave a trace of lacing in my pint glass. The carbonation appears lively, perhaps even a bit aggressive.

The aroma moves from a foreground of hay bale toward a background of a wee bit of lemon zest, a hint of yeast, and a whiff of coriander. I wasn't sure if coriander was the correct spice I was catching at the end, so I dug around in the wife's spice cabinet. The first bottle I opened was coriander and I found a direct match. I opened a few other bottles to check against them and found that coriander is the spice I smell in Curve Ball.

The taste was crisp, clean, and fairly dry. There is an elusive sweetness lurking about, provided by the flavor of hay. Also present are brief suggestions of lemon (zest?) and nettles. The flavor doesn't last too long, clipped short by a clean, dry finish.

I like this much better than in previous years, as far as I can remember.

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Pyramid gave Curve Ball, along with most of their other beers, a makeover. The labels have different artwork. The beers seem marketed to a different crowd. They seem to be aimed at the serious beer drinker, even if only as session beers, rather than the casual beer drinker. Some of the beers have been renamed, such as their Haywire Hefeweizen, which was once simply known as Hefeweizen. Some have been recategorized, such as Curve Ball, once a Kölsch-style ale, but now a blonde ale.

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Does Curve Ball taste better as a blonde? If it does, then it is probably due to semantics, since Kölsch ales and blonde ales are both essentially top-fermented golden ales with less flavor than many other styles of beer.

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This is definitely a beer that needs to be drunk while cold, and fairly quickly. This is a mowing-the-lawn beer. This is a warm-summer-evening beer. This is a cheeseburger-and-hotdog beer, which is how I experienced it.

I grilled some cheeseburgers and hot dogs on the home barbecue. The wife made baked beans and her specialty coleslaw. This beer worked well the entire meal.

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For what it is, this is a beer that I believe that I can finally appreciate. It is inexpensive, without lacking all flavor, or, worse, being skunky like most of the macrobrews. I still probably won't be reaching for it too often, but I will try it each summer to see if I need to reassess my memory of it again. And again.