Beer Review – Cactus Cat Kolsh

• Name: Cactus Cat
• Brewery: Nine Band Brewing
• Style: Kolsch
• Origin: Texas
• ABV: 5.2%

Going into this review, I had never heard of Cactus Cat Kolsch or its brewers, Nine Band Brewing. Upon further research, I discovered Allen based (near Dallas, TX), Nine Band brews 9 beers of differing styles.

Before we get into the review, I just want to take a moment to admire the wonderful design of  this can…

Cactus Cat is pale and transparent. Its medium carbonation builds a fairly tall head. Its light aroma holds slightly hoppy and grassy tones.

Texture wise, it’s light and crisp mouth feel, is very consistent with my expectations of a kolsch style beer. Its flavor profile, however, carries more of a punch than I expected. It’s surprisingly bitter for such a light colored and thinly textured brew.

While the bitterness is a surprising addition, it almost works in Cactus Cat’s detriment. The crisp flavor profile holds its strength for a surprisingly long period of time. Each mouthful of beer adds a little more bitterness, something much more common with IPAs than kolsches. While the bitterness never got overwhelming, it wasn’t my favorite thing and I feel the beer would have been better without it. That said, Cacuts Cat is a decent beer.

TL;DR

Cactus Cat Kolsch is a generally good beer. Mixing the light, crisp texture with an unusually deep flavor profile makes for a good drinking experience. In my opinion, the bitterness would be nicer if it were toned down. The building bitter aftertaste, while not overwhelming, is not my favorite. I would still recommend picking this one up

Rating: 7/10

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Learn more about Cactus Cat on Nine Band’s website, Untappd and Beer Advocate.

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