Insight Banshee Cutter Review

Name: Insight Banshee Cutter
Style: Blonde Ale
ABV: 5.5%
IBUs: N/A

It's another new beer from Insight Brewing and this outing is treading into somewhat familiar territory. It goes by the name Banshee Cutter (or The Return Voyage of Banshee Cutter if you want to get technical), and the reason why it's so familiar is that it's a Blonde Ale made with coffee. kind of like another beer from another brewery I did a while back *cough*Ballast Point*cough*.

In any case, it's nice to see a local take and what has been a huge hit across the country and it's even better to see that this waaaaay more reasonably priced. Alright, enough being salty, let's look at the beer!

Appearance - Mildly hazy yellow color with a high amount of visible carbonation. The head is pretty thin and stays that way for most of the time and there's a small amount of lacing left along the sides of the glass.

Aroma - Strong coffee ground & roasty notes that almost completely eclipse everything else, to the point where if you were to blindfold me, I would think I'm smelling a coffee stout. As it warms up, however, I am starting to pick up on some pale malts and light floral hops.The look and nose do not match up to each other, needless to say.

Taste - Unlike the nose where the coffee pretty much dominates, the coffee ground & pale malt aspects of the flavor are more or less equal and I'm even picking up some light yeasts and floral hop notes. The most interesting thing about this beer is the aftertaste because it is rather dry save for some floral hops and light yeasts.

Overall, I think it's pretty well executed for what it is and I'm even more impressed the aftertaste is as mellow as it turned out to be. Now I picked this up a couple weeks ago after seeing on the shelves for about a month so I'm not exactly sure what the seasonal/rotating availability of this is, but this is for sure looking at if you haven't already tried it out.

Insight Banshee Cutter - 8.5/10