Actual price in store: $4.34 (1 PT 6FL. OZ)
Actual worth: $2.00
Some people like wild salmon. For me it is funky tasting. Uncivilized. Drinking River Ale is sort of like eating a gamey, wild salmon. While there are worse things, the experience is slightly revolting.
There is this weird, oily texture to this ale. It’s very viscous. Sort of like a very heavy cough syrup. If you look at the ale, the contents don’t look uniform. It looks as if someone took a ladle and scraped it against the bottom of the fermentation tank and bottled it.
But this is okay. Really. Forget about how it looks. It’s taste that matters and River Ale is, how can I put this gently — an ale for people who are in touch with their feminine sides. River Ale is sweet. Way too sweet for what I would consider appropriate for an ale, yet not sweet enough for you to appreciate the aesthetic of sweetness. I think that had this ale been sweeter it might possibly have been interesting.
Some people love wild salmon and prefer it to farm-raised. Some people like their alcohol with plenty of sugar in it so it tastes like liquid candy. That’s okay. It’s just not my thing. I think River Ale has a serious identity crisis. I think the makers of River Ale are out of their minds to charge as much for their ale as they do.
