CRATE Brewery
Pale
4.5%
Hackney Wick, London, UK
CRATE was formed back in 2012 just before the Olympics made its way to east London. It has become one of the most well known small breweries since then with its fantastic pizzas and wonderful taproom in Hackney Wick. It has 4/5 core beers including an IPA, a lager, a stout, pale ale and a bitter which I reviewed in April 2014.

I’ve had the CRATE IPA on various occasions in both bottle and keg form and it is lovely. One of my favourite IPAs by a London brewery. I picked up a pale ale by CRATE recently from the always reliable and well stocked Clapton Craft. It’s a lovely golden orange colour and has a strong smell of citrus. There’s a small amount of carbonation when it pours and also a nice 1/2 finger foam on the beer.

The beer itself doesn’t really have that strong hoppy flavour I was hoping for but the taste is more earthy and herbal. Never thought I’d say a beer has a herbal element to it but there’s something twangy about this one. It’s a fairly standard affair here though. Nothing massively special about this pale ale, it is your typical pale ale and one I’d quite happily drink but at the same time not one I’m going to seek out on a regular basis.

OVERALL: 2.5/5