Highballer Pumpkin Ale - Grand River Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Cambridge)

Highballer Pumpkin Ale - Grand River Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Cambridge) 5.2%

Full gold with an orange hue in a glass. A spice forward aroma: cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and perhaps all-spice with a faint hint of pear, gourd and some toast, cereal and caramel.

Strongly nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves taste but with a distinctly pumpkin flavour as well. Sweet and quite heavily spiced although its flavouring, not including the malt flavours, can be broken down as 60% spices and 40% pumpkin. Highballer Pumpkin Ale has fairly low carbonation which makes for a smooth, watery mouthfeel even though there is a malty body with some toast and cereal notes.

Grapefruit Radler - Waterloo Brewing Company (Canada - Ontario - Kitchener) 3.1%

Grapefruit Radler - Waterloo Brewing Company (Canada - Ontario - Kitchener) 3.1%

Strong grapefruit aroma, very sweet but quite nice. An inch or so of soda-like quick fading foam on top of a very pale gold body.

Sweet taste, sweeter than I expected to be honest, and very carbonated. Only a very little bit of tartness; more of a white grapefruit flavour than a pink grapefruit flavour, and more like how a pop would be flavoured rather than the actual citrus fruit.

My unsurprising conclusion is that this is more of a pop than a beer, but that's what a Radler often is. I think this one is a bit overly sweet, though that certainly does appeal to my sweet tooth, and it lacks any malt flavour. I'd drink this if I was looking for a refreshing and slightly alcoholic drink but I certainly wouldn't reach for one if I wanted a beer.

Liefmans Cuvee Brut (Belgium)

Liefmans Cuvee Brut (Belgium) 6.0%
A strong, sweet, tart cherry aroma. A cloudy red colour in a glass that is so dark it is almost brown. A sugary, darkly malty taste and a little bit of chocolate as well as the anticipated tart cherry flavour: which when you put it together is a bit like a Black Forest Cake. This is a very interesting fruit beer, there is something about the cherry flavour that is very different from other cherry beers. It perhaps tastes the way it does because the cherry sugars have had a chance to ferment with the beer rather than being added to a finished beer. It is an intriguing variation and certainly worth trying as long as you don't hate fruit flavoured beers.

Pumpkin Ale - Great Lakes Brewery (Canada - Ontario - Toronto)

Pumpkin Ale - Great Lakes Brewery (Canada - Ontario - Toronto) 5.5%

A slightly cloudy, orange and gold colour in a glass. Great Lakes Brewery's Pumpkin Ale features a pumpkin aroma with cinnamon, all-spice and nutmeg but this aroma features with more gourd than spice.

The aforementioned spices are prominent in the flavour but, like in the aroma, a strong, earthy, gourd taste of pumpkin really is the main player in this tasty pumpkin ale. It also features a fairly bitter finish.

Pink Fuzz - Beyond The Pale (Canada - Ontario - Ottawa)

Pink Fuzz - Beyond The Pale (Canada - Ontario - Ottawa) 6.0%

A sweet red ruby grapefruit aroma, cedar and resin hops as well. A bit of fresh, floral vegetable like really sweet, raw and fresh off the vine green bean.

A cloudy pale gold, more like yellow, in a glass with a slight pink hue that turns the colour of the beer to just like grapefruit peel. Cedar and pine flavours, grapefruit as well (though more subdued than in the aroma). The grapefruit is a little tart, more like actual grapefruit than the grapefruit-like aroma citra or cascade hops can give a beer. Overall, this is quite a nice fruit flavoured wheat.

If you happen to be in the Ottawa area you can buy Pink Fuzz in growler format straight from the brewery. If you do, be sure to agitate it gently so that the sediment is more evenly distributed: it holds a lot of the flavour. Of course, Pink Fuzz is also available on tap throughout Ottawa; a format in which this tasty brew never fails to please.

Blueberry Ale - Wachusett Brewing (USA - Massachusetts - Westminster)

Blueberry Ale - Wachusett Brewing (USA - Massachusetts - Westminster) 4.5%

Smells like real, fresh blueberries; tastes like it too. Also sweet, malty and floral with the coriander-esque spiciness of the wheat beer. Blueberry and first and foremost then the taste shifts to the sweet malt and then onto the floral and spice (and everything nice) but the blueberries make a reappearance in the lingering finish. Pale gold and clear in a glass. Quite light for all its flavour.

Aphrodisiaque - Brasserie Dieu du Ciel (Canada - Quebec - St. Jerome)

Aphrodisiaque - Brasserie Dieu du Ciel (Canada - Quebec - St. Jerome) 6.5%

Opaquely black in a glass with a fairly quick fading light brown head. Strong cocoa and vanilla aroma with dark dried fruit. The vanilla aroma is delicate yet forceful and reminds me cookies and baking generally - Aphrodisiaque may just be the comfort food of beer. The flavour is initially all chocolate (delicious chocolate) but on subsequent sips, the vanilla envelops and enhances the chocolate culminating in a delightfully dessert-like beer experience. The finish is still laden with chocolate and vanilla but also has a certain smoky quality. I expected Aphrodisiaque to be more bitter and while it is not overly sweet by any means, it probably isn't more bitter than some of the darkest chocolates. I think Dieu du Ciel was very wise in this regard and has done a good job of letting the natural bitterness of the cocoa and vanilla beans stand on their own without using much of a hops bitterness at all. This is a delightful beer and though filling like a traditional stout, I could be easily persuaded to drink several of these indulgent beauties rather than eating dessert (or eating at all).

Alohog Pale Ale - Hogs Back Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Ottawa)

Alohog Pale Ale - Hogs Back Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Ottawa) 5.2%

This coconut flavoured beer pours a barely cloudy orange-ish amber gold colour in a glass. The aroma is suitably full of coconut with a just little bit of DMS (creamed corn), malt with some touches of grain and tones of nectary almost floral hops.

The first sip is very coconut-ty but it becomes more balanced with the drinking. Besides the coconut Alohog isn't particularly sweet but there is a malty body with some sweetness with a bit of grain with a bit of grain in a coconut first, moderately bitter (slightly resiney) finish. The balancing bitterness makes Alohog actually quite bitter (it is a Pale Ale afterall). Also, the pint I had seemed to drink above 5.2% ABV.

Alohog is quite good, if you like flavoured beers and especially if you like coconut you should definitely try it. Because it has such a distinct coconut flavour there are lots of opportunities to play on that by pairing foods with coconut flavours.

Summer Weizen - Okanagan Spring (Canada - British Columbia - Vernon) 5.0%

Summer Weizen - Okanagan Spring (Canada - British Columbia - Vernon) 5.0%

The aroma is a blast of apricot, peach and passionfruit with some hints of citrus. Okanagan Spring's Summer Weizen pours a lovely and cloudy apricot colour with a moderate head.

The taste is also potently apricot, mostly dominating the complimentary wheat flavours. You can certainly still taste the wheat: it gives the beer an appetizing creaminess. Also, the apricot and other fruit flavours (I feel like the passionfruit comes through well in the taste) are so pleasant and tasty that as long as you tend to like a fruit flavoured wheat ale, and know what to expect from this one, you are sure to like Summer Weizen.

As always, Okanagan Spring has an interesting and informative label which I appreciate. I also like the fact that use apricots (presumably) grown in the Okanagan Valley region.

PEI Brewing Grand Opening (Canada - Prince Edward Island - Charlottetown)

PEI Brewing Grand Opening (Canada - Prince Edward Island - Charlottetown)

I had the privilege to attend a pre-grand-opening, last night in Charlottetown for PEI Brewing new fantastic facility. The space is beautiful and well designed with a full bar, a tasting room, a event area, a retail store filled with cool merch and beer, and (of course and most importantly) a state of the art brewery just begging to be toured.

As you can see from the photos below, the brewery is set up with tours and the public in mind what with the nifty orange signs hanging over everything interesting. Rest assured, however, the beer they make here is delicious too. I had the pleasure of trying their new Blueberry Wheat and Mango Wheat.

If you are in the Charlottetown area they are having a Grand Opening party on Saturday, May 18th that sounds like a lot of fun. Check out their Facebook page for more details.

Shock Top (USA - Missouri - St. Louis)

Shock Top Belgian White (USA - Missouri - St. Louis) 5.2%

A nice orange apricot colour in a glass, slightly cloudy. This beer has a pleasant wheat and peach aroma. the taste is more floral and citrus (orange) than spicy but you can definitely taste the added coriander. Made by Anheuser-Busch/In-Bev this is actually (in my opinion) a nice beer. Pleasant fruit tones to go with the wheat flavour and a very slight kick of spice. I'd still prefer it with a little more coriander flavour and I have the sneaking suspicion that they may have used adjuncts like rice or corn in the brewing process but that could just be my natural suspicion of mega-breweries.

Shock Top Raspberry Wheat (Saint Louis, Missouri) 5.2%

Smells strongly of raspberries but doesn't taste all that much like them. Spicy and sweet, fruity and malty; a little bitter. Because it is not drowned in raspberry flavour it is distinctly a wheat beer and a cloudy gold colour in a glass.

Fruli Strawberry (Belgium) 4.1%

Fruli Strawberry (Belgium) 4.1%

A cloudy red with a brown or amber tint. Even the head has a slightly pink hue. A strong tart raspberry aroma with a strawberry mix and a bit of grape and lemon. A very sweet taste with some wheat grain flavours and LOTS of fruit juice. Quite a lot of sediment in the bottom of the bottle it's pretty fine though. Fruli Strawberry is a nice juice to drink and quite tasty but it's kind of weird for a beer, there's not really any beer flavour to speak of it's more like a slightly spiced fruit punch. It does however make a really good beer cocktail (or beertail) when mixed with a chocolate stout (Young's Double Chocolate Stout in particular).

Hoegaarden Rosée (Beligum) 3.0%

Hoegaarden Rosée (Beligum) 3.0%

Quite pink in a glass, cloudy. Lots of raspberry but strawberry too in the aroma; a bit like strawberry-rhubarb pie. Tastes a lot like Hoegaarden mixed with fruit juice... because that's pretty much what it is. Some wheat flavours come through with a touch of coriander. Hoegaarden Rosée has a moderately creamy mouthfeel, it is quite sweet but still a little tart, though not very tart, with plenty of raspberry and strawberry flavours that kind of run to peach.

Overall, Hoegaarden Rosée is a very low alcohol, wheat-ale-based, fruit-flavoured wobbly pop: tasty but not really a good fit for beer lovers. It is refreshing enough and could certainly make for an interesting ingredient in some beertails (cocktails made with beer).

Winter Beard - Muskoka Brewery (Canada - Ontario - Bracebridge) 8.0%

Winter Beard - Muskoka Brewery (Canada - Ontario - Bracebridge) 8.0%

This Double Chocolate Cranberry Stout is an opaque, very deep brown that is nearly black. There is alcohol in the aroma as well as tart red fruit with a dark chocolate backing. The taste is strongly of alcohol with dark chocolate, milk chocolate and, at first, some hops then tartness and red fruit (presumably cranberries) with a finish that reminds me of fruitcake.

Overall, a nice strong fruit flavoured seasonal but the fancy bottle, elaborate name and description (see below) and hilarious graphic built up sky-high expectations that the beer just doesn't seem able to meet.

False Creek Raspberry Ale - Granville Island Brewing (Canada - BC - Vancouver) 4.5%

False Creek Raspberry Ale - Granville Island Brewing (Canada - BC - Vancouver) 4.5%

Cloudy pink with amber hints in a glass with a frothy quick-fading white head. Tart and sweet raspberry jam aroma but with some nice malty tones in the background. Very tart raspberry flavour with sweet notes, some citrus hints and an appetizing aftertaste. The malt flavour is underwhelming or more accurately overwhelmed by the fruit, so this is a mainly raspberry ale. False Creek Raspberry Ale would mix well in a beertail (aka a beer-cocktail) and would pair well with summer fare from salad to BBQ to sorbet.

A good fruit flavoured beer, if you aren't into flavoured beers: move right along, nothing to see here.

Espresso Stout - Big Rock (Canada - Alberta - Calgary) 4.2%

Espresso Stout - Big Rock (Canada - Alberta - Calgary) 4.2%

Pours a dark, dark brown in a glass: nearly black, nearly opaque. A bitter aroma of dark black coffee and grain with a touch of milk chocolate, more than a touch of smoke like burnt toast. Very smooth mouthfeel, fairly sweet and not as bitter as I was expecting. A moderate coffee flavour (much stronger in the aftertaste), milk chocolate, a faint grain flavour. Big Rock's Espresso Stout is a very nice beer with subdued but pleasant and interesting flavours. It's tasty even though its coffee flavour (and stout flavour for that matter) isn't nearly as strong as I expected it would be: more of a sessionable stout.

Oranje Weisse - Amsterdam Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Toronto)

Oranje Weisse - Amsterdam Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Toronto) 5.0%



Pale, nearly full gold in a glass and just ever so slightly cloudy. My bottle had been stored for quite a while (at an appropriate temperature, mind you) so I think more sediment resisted the Weisse Roll (see photo below) than not. Towards the end of the bottle more of the sediment ended up in my glass and was quite nice. A quick look at the ingredients list reveals the reason why this aroma differs from other white beers: it is the anise which adds quite a pleasant aspect to go along with the coriander, yeast, malt and wheat tones.

The taste is quite a nice mix of anise and coriander with the citrus flavour being just a little muted (I, of course, did not serve it with an orange slice as the bottle suggested). The malt flavour speaks more to barley than wheat, though the wheat is clearly there and the mouthfeel is fairly creamy. This mix of grain choices has the added benefit of making the beer lighter and more refreshing than if they had gone heavier on the wheat: tailor-made for patios during hot Ontario summers. All in all quite nicely refreshing and I like the use of anise.

Beer Suggestions for the 100th Grey Cup in Toronto, Ontario

What is a football game (or any sporting event) without a few beers? The Canadian Football League Championship Game is being played in Toronto this year so here are three reviews of Toronto brewed beers in honour of the 100th playing of the Grey Cup. There's a light beer if you intend to drink a pile of 'em, a flavoured wheat if you like a splash of fruit with your ale and an IPA if it's hops that punches your ticket.

Cheers!



86 Light - Amsterdam Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Toronto) 3.8%


A nice gold colour in a glass, this light beer is light indeed. Very carbonated, lightly malty with a slight grain flavour, barely bitter, not sweet. It's nice for a light beer, well put together with a clean, crisp flavour. If light beer is what you want this is a fine choice.


Mill Street Brewery - Walker's Blueberry Wheat (Canada - Ontario - Toronto) 5.0%

A neat pink tinted amber colour in a glass. Quite a lot of medium sized sediment. A tart aroma that reminds me more of blueberry skins than it does of the blueberry flesh and carried with it some lemony notes.

Quite bitter and tart, the blueberry flavour mainly comes through in the sediment so this can be a hard beer to share: if you don't get the bottom of the beer it tastes very light indeed. Definitely should pour this beer into a glass to drink it.

A good but not overpowering blueberry flavour with plenty of tartness with citrus some other fruit flavours that remind me of watermelon and maybe a bit of cherry - kind of like a fruit punch. The blueberry in this beer is more like what wild blueberries taste like, rather than what blueberry juice or pie would taste like: more tart, less sweet, more of the peel's flavour coming through.

Duggan's Brewery 9 IPA (Canada - Ontario - Toronto) 6.2%

A brown hued gold in a glass. An aroma of resin, roast, alcohol and a dark malt coffee hint. The taste is very hoppy with lots of resin and alcohol taste and warming. Some toasted bread and darker malt touches. Pretty bitter as suits the style. Overall well balanced and an interesting darker type of IPA.

Ephemere Cassis (Black Currant) - Unibroue (Canada - Quebec - Chambly)

Éphémère Cassis (Black Currant) - Unibroue (Canada - Quebec - Chambly) 5.5%

A beautiful, floral, fruity and mouthwatering aroma of black currants. The taste is very much the same with a tart punch carrying the lovely black currant flavour, sweetness and more than a hint of citrus. There is a light malty backing that is more pronounced in the aftertaste as the showy fruit flavours fade to leave an appetizing impression of a rye (or darker) bread with a fruit glaze. Éphémère Cassis is a charming, slightly cloudy pink colour with a brown hint in a glass and a real standout.

St-Ambroise Citroulle: The Great Pumpkin Ale - McAuslan Brewing (Canada - Montreal)

St-Ambroise Citroulle: The Great Pumpkin Ale - McAuslan Brewing (Canada - Quebec - Montreal) 5.0%

Strong raw pumpkin aroma with some pumpkin pie crust tones and spices like nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon. Plenty of the aforementioned spices in the taste along with a noticable cloves tone that I didn't notice as much in the aroma; quite sweet (brown sugar) with some raw pumpkin and pumpkin pie flavours. Quite a dark brown in a glass with an orange hue.

Pumpkin is a funny kind of flavour because for many people the only way they eat pumpkin is in pumpkin pie. As a result, lots of these pumpkin beers, including this one, are spiced like pumpkin pie however there are some nice flavours to be had from the flesh of the gourd itself. McAuslan's St-Ambroise Citroulle The Great Pumpkin Ale does a good job of balancing the two: genuine pumpkin flavour and the familiar and comforting spices of pumpkin pie. Propeller's Pumpkin Ale is more heavy on the pumpkin side while Mill Street's Nightmare on Mill Street is more on the spiced pie side of the spectrum.

Although this helpful tip probably comes a week or more too late, the next time you are carving a pumpkin it is interesting to try a little taste of the raw flesh of the pumpkin. It is an interesting flavour, quite mild and delicate, but trying it raw and on its own may also give you a better idea of which flavours are coming from which ingredients for the next time you try a pumpkin ale.