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9 Golden Ales Reviewed – Great Golden Ales and American Blondes

American Blonde Ales and Golden Ales

At Silver Bluff Brewing Company, we love Golden Ales.  We love them if they are British, Belgian, American, or from anywhere worldwide.  American Blondes and Goldens pair well with subtle flavors, which is always an important tool to have when planning a meal.

Golden Ales and American Blondes, styles of beer loved for their refreshing qualities and smooth balance between malt and hops, track to the Summer months and outdoors. Silver Bluff Golden Ale associates with the British tradition of light, drinkable pub beers, and our favorite Goldens represent a nuanced part of the American craft beer scene.

In the US, Goldens and Blondes are typically characterized by a light, crisp flavor profile, beautiful Golden color, and under 5.5%. They’ve become gateway beers to the American craft brewing movement offering craft options for a beer during a beach visit or tailgate.

I think of a Golden Ale all as a beer style that reminds me of experiences: sunny days and good company.  By altering the malt profiles and hop bills and adopting a different strain of yeast, American brewers transformed the English Pale Ale into a new beer style – one that would become the American Golden Ale and the American Blonde Ale. The attractiveness of Golden Ales and American Blondes is simplicity. While extreme ingredients and high gravities often dominate the US craft beer shelf, counterpoints, like Goldens, show the skill of the brewer and yield a counterpoint.

Food Pairings with Golden Ale: Lighter Foods Love Blonde Beer

Golden Ale Food Pairings – Simple Advice

Pairing beer with food is a skill that needs to be developed, and flavor combinations aren’t universal.  A typical challenge is the perception that lighter beers and ones without big flavors can ‘go with anything’ and can easily pair well with multiple courses.  

This isn’t the case for Blonde Ales and Golden Ales (Check out some of our reviews here) which are picky pairings that I reserve for lighter meals.

Silver Bluff Golden Ale, with balanced bitterness and subtle floral and spicy aroma, is an excellent example of this style and is the beer reference for these pairings. Just learning about Golden Ales?  Check out our overview of the style.

Note that you can substitute most British Goldens and American Blonde Ales that are not too hoppy with Silver Bluff’s Golden to make your menus.  American Pale Ale with hop bitterness or craft beer with added flavors or fruits would be paired differently than these examples.

Seafood and Fish are Ideal for Golden Ales

Lighter seafood and fish and those with delicate and diverse flavors pair well with American and British Golden Ales. 

The beer’s

The Worldwide Golden Ale Landscape: An Informal Style Guide to Blonde Ale and Golden Variations

The Golden Ale and Blonde Ale Standard?

While style guides are essential tools for both brewers and beer enthusiasts, the market and the makers (drinkers) frequently change the path for a flavor profile.  With Golden Ales and Blonde Ales (our view on the styles), this is the situation.  Without a geographic modifier, ordering a Blonde or a Golden infers you are getting the locational variant of the style that connects to the bar, brewery, or package store you happen to be in at the time.  How ‘standard’ is that?

Styles provide a framework for understanding and categorizing beer styles available, but when a beer style that adapts to a local market can gain popularity and then spin out a newly recognized style, that framework becomes a popularity contest.  Ukrainian Golden and American Blonde/Golden Ale are in different phases of this contest to ‘be recognized.’ At the same time, Australian and New Zealand’s Blondes and Goldens will have a long road to separate their unique classes of beers from the generic Australian Pale Ale and New Zealand Pale Ale designations worldwide. 

The question to ask yourself is what beer will you receive if you ask for a Golden Ale in Wellington, NZ?  Does their colonial history with Britain mean you should expect a beautiful English Summer Ale or a Golden Bitter? Or do you expect an easy-to-drink session beer with a simple hop profile like Raglan Golden Ale?  Is Monteith’s Summer Ale a British Summer?  If they had a Golden Ale, would it confuse patrons that consider Golden Lager a staple?

What is Golden Ale? Separating American Golden Ales and Blonde Pales from the British and Belgians

Introduction to Golden Ale

Golden Ale, a style of beer developed and marketed for its refreshing qualities and vibrant color, creates confusion among beer enthusiasts due to its different variations. At Silver Bluff, we produce and distribute a hybrid of the American and British styles with our Golden Ale. The reception of this beer led us to do a deep dive to see if the term Golden was truly just a marketing style change applied to Blonde Ales or if there are actual unique characteristics that distinguish an American Golden Ale from an American Blonde Ale.

The term “Golden Ale” is confusing when placing British and Belgian styles next to American Goldens and Blondes, and by exploring the various publicly available definitions and brief histories of Golden Ale, the reality appears to us as one where the market evolution has created two styles worthy of separate sub-categories.

Silver Bluff’s Brewing Team Notes

Silver Bluff Brewing Company’s Director of Brewing Operations, Will Melvin, added, “Silver Bluff Golden Ale is a unique representation of the American Golden Ale, which is derivative of the British style.“

He continued, “My take is that Golden Ales were beers for people who wanted lagers by people who didn’t feel comfortable brewing lagers. We have multiple excellent lagers and don’t need our Golden Ale to pretend to be something else. It’s brewed as a Golden Ale for people who want an ale and who want something very different from a hoppy American Pale Ale.”

Kevin Coyle, co-founder of Silver Bluff, adds, “This Golden Ale recipe was created in 2012 as a lighter craft beer easy to enjoy as it gets hotter here in the Golden Isles.  Although light in color, this golden ale has additional specialty malts utilized to enhance its body and flavor.  Willamette and Sterling hops are utilized to create a subtle floral and spicy aroma.  The finish is crisp with balanced mild bitterness.” 

He continued, “We are located in the Golden Isles of Georgia, so our Golden Ale and Golden Isles IPAhave to be balanced and differentiated.”

Silver Bluff Brewing Company receives a Silver Medal at the prestigious 2023 World Beer Cup®

The World Beer Cup® acknowledges only the finest beers worldwide and this accolade was bestowed upon the brewery’s flagship beer, the Mexican Lager.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 12, 2023

Silver Bluff Brewing Company, a microbrewery based in Brunswick, Georgia, is proud to announce that it has been awarded a Silver Medal at the prestigious World Beer Cup®. This accolade was bestowed upon the brewery’s flagship beer, the Mexican Lager, cementing its place as one of the world’s finest beers.

The World Beer Cup®: “The Olympics of Beer”

The World Beer Cup®, often referred to as the “Olympics of Beer,” is the most prestigious beer competition in the world. Organized annually by the Brewers Association, the World Beer Cup® brings together over 200 highly qualified beer professionals who judge more than 100 style categories. The competition celebrates the art and science of brewing and promotes international brewing excellence. It acknowledges only the finest beers worldwide, ensuring consumers have access to exceptional brands. According to the World Beer Cup® website, 2,376 breweries across 51 countries submitted 10,213 beers in this year’scompetition.

What is a Mexican Lager? A Guide to the Misunderstood Beer Style

“When I first got to Silver Bluff Brewing Company and we were going over what the first beers would be, I was given one note about the Mexican Lager: “More Modelo than Pacifico”.

Kevin and Jeff had a recipe that they had been brewing on their respective homebrew systems for years, so that was where I started. After scaling it up we had a baseline for adjustments. We really bridge the gap between traditional European lagers by using some Pilsner, Vienna malt, and German noble hops; and more American style craft beer by using the US, 2-row barley, and Mexican Lager yeast.

Silver Bluff Brewing Company medals as Georgia Breweries win big at 2020 U.S. Open Beer Championships

Sixteen Georgia breweries brought home twenty-nine medals from the annual U.S. Open Beer Championships, one of the country’s largest brewing competitions.  In addition to the individual medals, Monday Night Garage Brewing from Atlanta was awarded second place in the Grand National competition, which features the breweries that receive the most medals in the event.

Silver Bluff Grand Opening on First Coast Living

It was a pleasure speaking with Curtis Dvorak of First Coast Living about Silver Bluff’s grand opening.

Watch the entire segment here.

Brunswick, Georgia’s Historic Brewery

Brunswick’s historic brewery was located downtown, and it was a short-lived experiment by a German entrepreneur named Peter Herman Wolters.