Sixpoint Sweet Action

Continuing the Sixpoint series this week, we come to can number three. Having covered The Crisp lager and Bengali Tiger IPA earlier, we come to the flagship of the brewery, one of the first beers loosed upon New York from them seven years ago.

Sweet Action kind of falls into that realm of “who doesn’t like this kind of beer sometimes?” when it comes to what you’ll reach for any given day, and I think that goes a long way toward explaining its ubiquity in New York City’s bars and restaurants. It isn’t proclaimed to be any particular style, but think cream ale if you’re hung up on that sort of thing. A cream ale would be lightly fruity, definitely skewed toward the malty end of the spectrum, but with a mild bitterness to keep things in a sort of balance. Really, it’ll be an easy-drinking, straightforward… beer.

The can is decorated much like the others in the series — see the UPC above, for example — and describes the beer thusly: “Ah love is bitter and sweet, but which is more sweet the bitterness or the sweetness, none has spoken it. Sweet Action is an idea; a concept. It is simply a representation of what makes beer great — the marriage of barley and hops, in a harmonious balance of sweet and bitter.”

Yeah, me too. Still, you’re expecting a rather clean, not-too-bitter, not-too-sweet ale, not unlike a Boddington’s or your average brewpub’s Golden Ale, only “better”. How well did it do for me?

Sixpoint Sweet Action pours from the can a slightly hazy deep-gold color, whipping up a perfect finger or two of light-beige foam on top that lasts a good way down the glass. Besides the obvious grainy malt aroma that dominates this beer from start to finish, I pick up a mild grassy hoppiness, and a little bit of stone-fruitiness, like pear and peach. The Sixpoint yeast presents itself fairly unobtrusively otherwise, so we’re off to a good start.

The taste keeps a lot of the pear and peachiness of the malt along with a heavy dose of the traditional sweet grainy maltiness, but it’s still a very clean taste profile, not flabby; not exactly crisp, but dominated by maltiness and, dare I say it, well-balanced between malty and bitter. Hops do their bittering job in the background, largely staying out of the way flavorwise. Alcohol isn’t noticeable at 5.2% by volume, and while the beer isn’t as carbonated as I expected or wanted, the beer never feels weighty, or flat, it just keeps coasting along with every sip.

Occasionally, as it warms the Sweet Action comes off a bit cidery and thin, like bad homebrew, but for the most part that’s kept in check. The solution is of course to keep it cooler, and as the beer isn’t designed to be savored and sipped by the fireplace over the course of the evening, why would I let it warm in the first place?

As it stands, of the three Sixpoint beers I’ve reviewed thus far, this is the one I’d bring to an barbecue where I don’t know most of the people attending. It’s easy to enjoy for most people with a little open-mindedness about beer drinking, and honestly, it’s not so interesting aroma-wise that drinking it straight out of the can would affect enjoyment significantly.

Before I let this series of reviews end, a word about the cans: Sixpoint, perhaps trending earlier than most people in this hipster-eat-hipster world, has claimed the beers are not in cans, but… nanokegs. (Given that a 16-ounce can is 1/124th of a standard 15.5-gallon half-keg, maybe centikeg would be more accurate, but we’re not naming things based on the math here.) Yes, nano is the prefix of the moment, and Sixpoint is ahead of the curve! And if you’re a smart beer drinker, soon you too will be holding a nanokeg of your very own.

Pick up Sixpoint at your favorite beer store and, increasingly, better groceries. $9 for four seems to be the going rate, still, so it’s worth the money to give it a whirl. If I can pick up the lone remaining Sixpoint… nanokeg, the series will reach its finale next week. Until then, enjoy your local breweries when you have the opportunity.