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Pale Ale | 5% ABV | 30 IBUs

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After a long day's travels, going to the city and exploring all the nice to offer with my fiance, it was time to head home. As the designated driver, I could not have my drink in the city, so I took it home. Or, there was a beer waiting for me in the fridge!

When my fiance me in the Cape, the south-western province of our country, she always wants visit the Bo-Kaap. This has become a little tradition of sorts by now. When she comes to visit, I take her to the city and we stock up on various things: fancy coffee shops, spices, and most importantly, Samoosas!

We have a secret little shop that we always visit where we buy the best samoosas, a local fan favourite. Little triangles of flavour explosions! This is not a food review, but a beer review, so let me get to the beer!

With out little city excursion coming to an end, we bought some extra samoosas for home, and for the beer!

As we got closer to home, my excitement grew. I wanted to pair the samoosas with the beer and I wanted to share this with my fiance.

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And what a wonderful combination it was!

The sun was beginning to set and I poured myself this Pale Ale, the Rocky River from Saggy Stone. And like always, the floral, zesty, and fruity hop aromas hit me first.

(Side note: The more I drink from Saggy Stone, the more I realise they have a specific style that they follow, and most of their beers have bits and pieces from this style. More on that in upcoming beer reviews!)

It poured a nice and dark colour, and my mouth almost salivated for the beer. It was a nice sunny day (it is still winter so it was not too hot), but after driving a long time through the city, this beer and the accompanying snack could not come at a better time. The contrast between the beer (body) and the head was as usual perfect — dark and light.

The first sip met all my expectations, as Saggy Stone's unique style — a mix between bitter IPAs and ales and fruity New England-style IPAs — permeates all of their beers (in the best kind of way though).

The first sip was fruity, zesty, fresh, and not bitter at all — even though the label says so. Saggy Stone's beers are all but bitter, and that is why they are so refreshing. Rather than heavy, bitter, and alcoholic, their beers are fresh, hoppy-fruity, and light.

This paired incredibly well with the spicy samoosas that we ate! I tried to give my fiance a taste of my beer, but she is still not yet on board with the bitter beers — that is, bitter to her. The beer packs a punch of 30 IBUs, and for someone not used to drinking IPAs, this might be a literal punch!

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The lacing on the glass was also beautiful. And weirdly enough, this oversized and funny-looking beer glass did wonders for the beer. As the beer warmed up a bit, it released even more of the fruity aromas.

As of writing this, and going through my tasting notes, I have realised what I kind of miss from all of these fruity beers: The yeasty flavour. This might be a bit strange, but in some of my upcoming reviews of beers that had more yeast in them, the beers from Saggy Stone resemble a very "clean" beer if we can place them on a spectrum. But again, more on this later!

All in all, this was again and like always a fantastic beer, one that I will return to for sure. It is not as big and bold as their other IPAs, obviously, it is a pale ale. But it sure is a good one to enjoy on a hot day!

I hope that you had a good beer to enjoy this weekend, treat yourself!

Happy drinking and keep safe.

All of the musings and writings are my own, albeit inspired by this wonderful beer. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.