Beer Review: New Glarus Apple Ale

Reviewing the Apple Ale from New Glarus Brewing Company. New Glarus is famous for its fruit beers. This is my first fruit beer by New Glarus.
Score: 86

Summer 2011 vintage bottle served in a New Glarus flute and enjoyed on 04/24/12.

Appearance: Pours a clean and transparent golden straw yellow, apple juice-like color. Has a pretty effervescent appearance. A finger of bubbly head at pour settles into a bubbly ring around the glass. Below average lacing and poor retention. 4/5

Smell: Sweet-and-sour apple candy mixed with juicy and sweet honeycrisp apple and mactinosh apple aroma. There's a little candied watermelon and spice in the aroma too. Smells like it could be a Smirnoff Ice variant. Quite pleasant. 4/5

Taste: There's a nice sweet and juicy apple flavor throughout with candied, but not sweet-and-sour (surprisingly, given the aroma), apple flavor on the midpalate. Some have described this beer as a green jolly rancher, and I'd agree. The flavor is very pleasant and crisp, but then there is a really strange aftertaste to the beer. The aftertaste is slightly grainy with a malty corn sugar flavor -- almost like a malty American adjunct lager-like flavor that reminds you "hey, this is a beer" (but in a negative way, given the beer's primary flavors). The aftertaste really ruins what would have otherwise been a really refreshing fruit beer. 3.25/5

Mouthfeel: Light bodied with lively carbonation. Nice and prickly sweetness on the tongue. Juicy mouthfeel. Sweet, fruity and crisp. 3.75/5

Overall: No one else I talked to who has had this beer before could recall the aftertaste, but they had the beer awhile ago. Maybe this beer has fallen off or I just got a bad bottle. If not for the aftertaste, I would have probably scored this one much closer to a 90.

Recommendation: If you like fruit beers or the flavor of the green jolly rancher, then seek this one out.

Pairings: Horchata.

Cost: $2.99 for a 12 oz bottle or $10.99 for a four pack.