19th Anniversary Golden Ale is Deschutes Brewery‘s first ever bottled Belgian style ale, a nice 8.7% alcohol brew that I first tasted at the pub. I was impressed then and I’m still impressed after the bottled version.

Appearance: Nice pale golden yellow… I fancy I even see a tinge of gold in the otherwise mostly white head. Fairly clear.

Smell: Sweet, slightly flossy Belgian candi sugar, with some caramel.

Taste: I notice right away the coriander spicing—I don’t remember that at the pub. Light and sweet and spicy with a hint of hops. Some alcohol heat in the back. Perhaps some orange peel to accentuate the coriander, too. Pleasantly warm… very tasty.

Mouthfeel: Nice and medium-bodied with a touch of heat from the spices and alcohol.

On BeerAdvocate, they don’t yet have the 10 reviews required for their usual scoring, but the running average is 3.55 out of 5. Reviewers are split 67%/33% on approval… so 3 of those reviews are below average. On RateBeer, it scores 3.09 out of 5 thus far, putting it into their 48th percentile.