Beer – #61 – Dead Good Beer – Golden Ale

Dead Good Beer - Golden Ale is brewed for Dead Good Beers in the style of an Golden Ale / Blonde Ale, and they're based in Nelson, New Zealand.



A 330Ml Bottle of 5.0% ABV beer this one.

Alarmingly the label says that added organic elder flowers into the brew. I don't know if this is clever inspired or desperate to differentiate their outsourced beer into something niche.

Golden Ale seems to be a catchall though, this could either be something that's struggling to be a "blonde" or a safe haven that precludes criticism.

This is a pale yellow beer, and similar to the IPA seems under-carbonated and despite my bestest efforts failed to deliver any head at all. I tried, really I tried. Either my nose is broken or there is no aroma, how's that happen?

Immediately then this drinks like it's flat. It's not something that I was expecting and not something I'm thinking that I'd enjoy.  The elder flower might be the taste that I'm reaching for when I'm drinking this. And unlike the IPA I'm actually not loving this, at all.

The pdubyah-o-meter flickers to a 4 from 10 arbitrary numbers for this. An Avoidable mistake.

Dead Good Beer is one of a new wave of craft brewing companies commonly called a “virtual brewery”. A “virtual brewery is one that contracts an actual brewery to make their beer for them. The level of involvement of the virtual brewery, in the brewing process varies greatly from “Make me a beer” to full hands on brewing.

As a Postscript – This beer has a mention / dedication for Ninoy Aquino on the label, He was assassinated at the Manila International Airport upon returning home from exile in the United States in 1983

Beer – #60 - Dead Good Beer - IPA

Dead Good Beer -India Pale Ale, is brewed for Dead Good Beers in the style of an India Pale Ale (IPA), and they're based in Nelson, New Zealand.

Dead Good Beer is one of a new wave of craft brewing companies commonly called a “virtual brewery”. A “virtual brewery is one that contracts an actual brewery to make their beer for them. The level of involvement of the virtual brewery, in the brewing process varies greatly from “Make me a beer” to full hands on brewing.

Make of that what you will, seems though that they declare themselves somewhere in the middle.

A bottle of 330Ml of 5.3% ABV dark golden beer with a creamy head. There's an understated hoppiness about the aroma, not unpleasant. It also appears to be under carbonated, it's not that lively, the head has fallen away quickly.

There is a bitterness that carries, from the hoppiness, but it's not aggressive, and the sweetish malty tones are an ok balance. my new favourite phrase "I'm not not loving this" seems to be where I'm at at the moment. Not a bad place to be, but with option to move to somewhere else. I think that might be because I'm having reservations about the on-going quality of outsourcing beer production, it might also be because of the underlying bitterness is creeping.

The pdubyah-o-meter sits at an arbitrary 7 on the arbitrary scale of things. There are many worse ways to drink an IPA than this.

As a Postscript - This beer has a mention / dedication for Blair Peach on the label, a New Zealand-born teacher who was fatally assaulted by a police officer during an anti-racism demonstration in London, England in 1979. Nice work.