“Cross Knot Kolsch is a German style golden ale with clean, crisp flavours, restrained bitterness and a dry finish. An extended conditioning period and cool ferment yields a beer of refreshing subtlety.”
Served in a shaker glass. Cross Knot pours a somewhat pale golden hue with a thin wispy head laying over the top. As we imbibe it reduces to a fine film with scarce lace following it down. The nose is fresh, bright, citrusy and slightly grainy. One thing is for sure there is an excellent balance of lifted citrus notes against the grainy/cereal malt backing. Some grassy hops begin to come through in as we really dig our noses in. Really crisp and snappy, we like it. The mouth feel has a kind of mineral sparkle to it – a nod to the precise amount of Co2. It’s also light on, mild in body and extremely sessional. An approachable 4.7% ABV adds to its high drink-ability. Upfront the taste presents a malt forward profile with grainy cereal malts leading the subtle citrus notes through the mid. What we could only describe as a very mild bitterness (24 IBU) is picked up as the beer punctuates with crisp grassy hop characters and subtle cereal/biscuit malts. We’ve been impressed with this brewery ever since we visited it last year on a Brisbane brewery tour. Unfortunately this Kölsch wasn’t tapped when we were there so we’ve been wanting to try it ever since. And we must say it’s a superb interpretation of the style – light, crisp, fruity and grainy with that super sessional mouth feel. Solid drop.