Gigantic IPA (United States - Oregon - Portland)

Gigantic IPA (United States - Oregon - Portland) 7.3%

A cloudy bronze in a glass with a resilient head of foam. A cedar and melon aroma. The flavour is very nice, a much more mellow IPA than I expected: cedar and melon. The aftertaste is more bitter but still not a hops character that slaps you across the face - which is perfect if you've grown tired of overhopped IPAs. That isn't to say that Gigantic's IPA isn't hoppy and bitter, it is, but the flavours are put together in such a way that the malty sweetness and hops bitterness work as partners rather than the flavour just being all hops.

Beaver River I.P.Eh? - Greener Futures - Beau's All-Natural Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Vankleek Hill)

Beaver River I.P.Eh? - Greener Futures - Beau's All-Natural Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Vankleek Hill) 6.0%

Punchy fruity tones stem from the hops and ginger combination, citrusy, almost like the peel of an orange - that characterizes the hops character. There are also distinct rum tones to be enjoyed, floating above the other flavour these alcohol, spice and wood tones give this version of Beaver River I.P.Eh? a heady and indulgent boozy aspect despite the fact that it is only 6% ABV. Beaver River I.P.Eh? is quite bitter but with some malty sweetness. This is a fun version of an IPA, the ginger and the rum barrels play well with the other flavours. I'd pick it up again if they were to make it again.

Angry Moose - Stack Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Sudbury)

Angry Moose - Stack Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Sudbury) 9.0%

A crystal clear amber gold in a glass. A sweet and somewhat peachy aroma mixed in with all those hops! Cedar, resin and citrus. As it warms there is a bit of toffee

Bitter flavour with lots of evergreen flavours a mix of cedar, pine and ... well that's just about all the evergreen trees I know. Oh wait, spruce! A caramelized sweetness that reminds me of the way burning sap smells which is exactly where some sweeter barrel tones come from as the charring on the inside of barrels before their use in aging beer or spirits brings out and caramelizes the sap and sugars in the wood. This beer is really amazingly balanced and it really conceal its alcohol content well. If they can produce this beer consistently to this high quality, and consistency can be a problem for new microbrews as they start up, I can see this Imperial IPA bringing home some awards for Stack Brewing.

White Shield - Worthington's (United Kingdom) 5.6%

White Shield - Worthington's (United Kingdom) 5.6%

Deep gold in a glass with an aroma with a bitter touch, a bit of honey and some wood tones that border on resiny. Light flavour of malty, toasty sweetness, lightly spicy or herbal with the barest hint of red fruit esters but with a somewhat bitter and resiny finish. In English India Pale Ales the hops flavours are much less bombastic than in their American IPA cousins and White Shield is no exception; however, while White Shield has the ideal flavour spectrum for an English IPA it seems awfully muted. The flavours are all quite subdued so while White Shield is on point it is a bit timid, even for an English IPA.

Dinner Jacket O'Red IPA - Arch Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Guelph)

Dinner Jacket O'Red IPA - Arch Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Guelph) 6.3%

A red hued gold in a glass with a big head of off-white foam. Cedar and resin aroma, with a scent of some sticky caramelized sugars you would expect from a Red Ale.

Very bitter, hops forward flavour at first and a very bitter aftertaste - a little metallic even. Honestly, Dinner Jacket seemed too bitter at first but I got accustomed to it quite quickly and more of the flavours came out rather than solely bitterness. Resin, cedar, pine and other faint wood tones form the hops character while crusty bread, and some nearly sticky candied fruit tones in the malty body. As promised on the label and by the use of oats, Dinner Jacket O'Red IPA does have a creamy mouthfeel.

In the end, the malt body of a Red Ale is what distinguishes this from other IPAs and a bit more of those Red Ale malt flavours as well as a bit less of the bitterness would make this beer a real standout.

Honey IPA - Trafalgar Ales and Meads (Canada - Ontario - Oakville)

Honey IPA - Trafalgar Ales and Meads (Canada - Ontario - Oakville) 5.5%

A dark, amber colour, smoke and fire kissed - kind of like the colour of sap. Resiny, coppery aroma, with a distinct sweet honey tone and touches of lavender and clover - maybe a bit of toffee too.

A fairly mellow hops flavour actually; resiny with much of the bitterness in the aftertaste. Sweet honey adds to the malty body of crusty bread and some nearly roasty malt flavours. A bit of a toffee flavour too that is well balanced by the bitterness. Also a subtle nutty flavour like the kind you'd taste from multigrain bread.

Overall I think this beer is pretty good, it's not an really IPA, by flavour or by alcohol content, however it's a fine American Pale Ale and I like the honey twist.

Red Racer India Pale Ale - Central City Brewers (Canada - British Columbia - Surrey)

Red Racer India Pale Ale - Central City Brewers (Canada - British Columbia - Surrey) 6.5%

A slightly red full gold colour in a glass with a big head of white frothy foam. Resin, cedar, citrus (grapefruit) and mango hops aroma. Strongly hoppy flavour, with grapefruit, papaya, cedar, pine and sticky resin. Quite bitter but with some sweetness from the malty mixed in. A bitter hops (especially grapefruit) and slightly metallic aftertaste. This is a solid IPA that would go well with stirfry and one that I would drink regularly if it was local, that's no knock against Red Racer I just prefer my locally produced beers for environmental reasons.

Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel - Brasserie D'Achouffe (Belgium)

Chouffe Houblon Dobbelen IPA Tripel - Brasserie D'Achouffe (Belgium) 9.0%

Gold, slightly cloudy in a glass with a big head of white and very light foam. A yeasty, nectar and herbal aroma with hints of mint and flowers. There is a bitterness of hops lingering in the background. The sediment at the bottom of the bottle is very fine but it does add to yeasty characteristic of this fine Belgian ale.

Bitter taste but also sweet and yeasty. Pine hops flavour without any sticky resin flavour; more like a dry bitterness that has flashes of pineapple to my taste. The pineapple may be as a result of mixing with some of the nectar and floral flavours of the yeast. The flavour is just what I expect from a Tripel: herbal yeast notes with floral hints while being sweet with some honey tones except it also has strong hops flavours and is not heavy on the tongue. In fact, many Belgian Golden Ales, Dubbels and Tripels are often a little syrupy (though in a good way) but I think Chouffe Houblon high alcohol content thins this beer a little so it plays lighter and thinner on the tongue, even though it is quite deliciously sweet. The bitterness of the hops also cleans out any very sweet highs. This is a really nice Belgian IPA or Double IPA if that's what they are calling it.

Bia IPA - Birrificio Del Ducato (Italy)

Bia IPA - Birrificio Del Ducato (Italy) 6.5%

Full gold in a glass with a slight haze. The head faded fairly quickly leaving minimal lacing. The aroma is sweet, honey and grain with hops that smell of tropical fruits: papaya, nectarine and maybe some peach.

The taste is quite sweet with touch of candi sugar and caramel while still having a bitter bite and finish. To my taste this beer is heavily loaded with drying hops that you would expect in a pilsner or European lager; there are, no doubt, other hop types used as well since the hops character of this beer features more than dryness and some hops spice but also subtle tropical fruit flavours. However, this heavy use of pilsner hops stands out to me because its use in an IPA in conjunction with other types is interesting and I can't quite think of another beer that does it to this extent. Combined with the sweetness of this IPA, the hops come across as more nectar than resin with faint fruity notes of peach and tangerine that remind me of a zinfandel wine. Bia IPA is an interestingly subtle IPA that still packs in the hops but is different from those North American IPAs that tote loads of cedar and resin flavours.

Baldwin Fish-Eye - Kensington Brewing Company (Canada - Ontario - Toronto/Guelph)

Baldwin Fish-Eye - Kensington Brewing Company (Canada - Ontario - Toronto/Guelph) 6.5%

An amber orange in a glass with a frothy white head with impressive staying power. Seriously this head last and lasts, it may contribute to the flavour being more bitter since the foam often contains the more volatile hop oils. An aroma like a pine and cedar forest but with some citrus (orange) and a perfumy floral touch too. I could contentedly just sit and smell this beer for quite a while.

Hoppy cedar and resin taste along with nice toasted bread and grain flavours. Pleasant orange flavours and malt sweetness balance some of the hops.  Quite a grain heavy finish. Late onset of a robustly bitter aftertaste. A nice IPA, more orange flavour with a more bitter aftertaste than the average IPA (if the term 'average IPA' means anything). If you like really bitter beers and the citrus character of hops this one is a riot and would go well with just about any strong flavoured food.

Boneshaker Unfiltered IPA - Amsterdam Brewery (Canada - Ontario - Toronto)

Boneshaker Unfiltered IPA - Amsterdam Brewery (Canada - Ontario - Toronto) 7.1%

A deep, slightly orange and nearly glowing amber in a glass with an off-white head that fades fairly quickly but leaves pleasant lacing. Grapefruit, mango and passionfruit dominated hops aroma at first, but then it mellows into an aroma featuring more melon and resin tones. A swirl of the glass with bring back a finger of foam as well as the hoppy tropical highlights of mango and passionfruit for a moment. The taste is of resin and cedar mellowed with some melon and mango tones; strong hops bitterness and a sweet malty body that is caramelized and a little sticky like a Red Ale. The finish reveals some very nice caramel tones and the aftertaste is very much bitter for the most part but eventually fades into a nice grain flavour with lingering notes of pine. No alcohol taste that I detected but there is enough in this fine ale to set your tongue tingling at times.

Boneshaker is a very nice India Pale Ale and, seeing as how it tips the scales at 7.1%, it could even be considered to be a very nice Imperial IPA. Lots more tropical fruit flavours than other IPAs but that's part of the reason why IPAs are fun: sure they are almost all very hoppy but they can be hoppy in dramatically different ways. One final note about the hops-borne tropical fruit flavours, they come out even more so as the beer warms a little which decreases the extent of the bitterness.

Mad Tom IPA - Muskoka Brewery (Canada - Ontario - Bracebridge) 6.4%

Mad Tom IPA - Muskoka Brewery (Canada - Ontario - Bracebridge) 6.4%

Cedar, resin, kumquat, passionfruit, grapefruit and a little orange rounds out the delectable aroma. A brass colour in a glass with a big, resilient, frothy white head of foam.

Unlike some IPAs with fruity and floral hops aroma the passionfruit and citrus continues in the taste along with the sticky cedar. In fact these delightful flavours are first and foremost. Mad Tom IPA is fairly sweet, especially in the finish, but still has plenty of the bitterness expected from an IPA. Its tasty aftertaste is sticky resin along with a certain pleasant grain touch. Overall, Mad Tom is a really nicely flavourful IPA.

West Coast IPA - Churchkey Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Campbellford)

West Coast IPA - Churchkey Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Campbellford) 5.0%

Gold in a glass; not much of a head. The aroma and taste are very similar: dominated by the hops character of melon and muted grapefruit with a touch of cucumber and earthiness that combine to be something much like a gourd or mild squash - not quite pumpkin because the flavour is too cool and mellow. A slightly strange kind of IPA.

IPA - Southern Tier Brewing Company (USA - New York - Lakewood) 7.3%

IPA - Southern Tier Brewing Company (USA - New York - Lakewood) 7.3%

A full gold in a glass with a thick white head that fades but shows some resilience. Melon, pineapple and citrus hops aromas first, followed by sweetness, a bit of mint and some cedar or resin.

The taste is not as hoppy as I expected, don't get me wrong it is still hoppy and bitter, but the malt flavours are very nicely blended and intricate with touches of grain, sweet toasted bread and a not-quite-caramel flavour that latches onto the sweeter more melon-like hops flavour and melts it over you palate. The finish is sweet and somewhat bitter with the aforementioned fruity and floral hops but some cedar and resin reveal themselves in the late finish and aftertaste leaving you with a pleasantly hoppy glow. Speaking of glow, there is no way to tell that this beer has such a high alcohol content. It is very easy drinking and smooth as well as being 7.3%: all this translates into Southern Tier's IPA being deliciously troublesome, try one.

The Matador Imperial IPA - Flying Monkeys (Canada - Ontario - Barrie)

The Matador Imperial IPA - Flying Monkeys (Canada - Ontario - Barrie) 10%


The first thing I smell from the aroma is sweetness, and a hint of citrus or passionfruit and then the strong cedar and resin tones that characterize this Imperial IPA aged on Spanish Cedar. It pours a cloudy orange-gold colour with a lingering white head.

The taste is sweet with almost peachy fruit tones along with lots of malty, nearly caramel tastiness and the lovely balancing bitterness loaded with cedar tones, from the hops as well as from the actual cedar. There's nearly no sign of the high alcohol content either, which is quite surprising for a 10% ABV beer. Lots of resin and a peppery, spicy finish exactly as alluded to on the label. This large bottle of excellent beer is indeed perfect for sharing with beer aficionados.

Citra One Hop IPA - Garrison Brewing (Canada - Nova Scotia - Halifax) 6.5%

Citra One Hop IPA - Garrison Brewing (Canada - Nova Scotia - Halifax) 6.5%

Brassy gold colour in a glass. Lovely citra hop aroma of mango, passionfruit and papaya with some light vegetal touches; some tones of honey. Quite a bitter taste, a malty body, some hone and still mango as well as passionfruit a bit of a slightly metallic aftertaste that mellows after a few sips but reminds me of dandelion greens.

This hops provides a really neat hops character that dresses this American IPA up in exotic tropical fruit flavours. Citra One Hop IPA is the second of the One Hop IPA series by Garrison. I have already reviewed the first and I look forward to trying their next one as soon as it is released.

Fredericton Craft Beer Festival 2013

Fredericton Craft Beer Festival 2013

The inaugural Fredericton Craft Beer Festival took place this past weekend (March 9th, 2013) at the Delta Fredericton. The event was well attended and thoroughly enjoyable with an impressive selection of great beers. Where some beer festivals have a number of international lagers that we've all had before, Fredericton Craft Beer Festival was a tribute to craft beers and had none of these "filler beers".

I was very pleased to be able to try beers by Bushwakker, based in Regina, Saskatchewan and by Shiretown out of Dalhousie New Brunswick. I'm not normally able to get my hands on these brews so that was interesting.

Also Picaroons had a cask version of their Yippee IPA that was just amazing. The most surprising beer of the festival had to be Moosehead Cask, it was flavourful and really interesting - not what I expected from Moosehead to be honest.

As fun as the festival was I feel like I could have had a better time if the event had done a better job of getting information to us. When I arrived I was handed a roll of tickets without explanation. None of the volunteers inside the venue that I asked knew what the tickets were for. I eventually went back out to the gate, asked the staff there and found out that the tickets were for the "Garrison Beer Education Room" but with no indication as to what the "Garrison Beer Education Room" was.

I eventually made my way to the Beer Education Room and, to my utter astonishment, found what seemed like more than a dozen more ales, barley wines and bock beers to sample by Unibroue, Brooklyn brewery and plenty of other breweries that had not been advertised in the lead up to the event and were not even included in the beer checklist pamphlet I received when I arrived!

Jackpot.

... Except, the Garrison [District Ale House] Beer Education Room closed an hour before the end of the main event and precisely ten minutes after I discovered it, bummer. However, I still got to try Brooklyn Brewing's Monster Barley Wine and their Local 2, so I'm grateful for that.

Edit: The organizers of the Fredericton Craft Beer Festival contacted me after this post went up to explain why the Garrison Beer Education Room worked the way it did. According to them the Beer Education Room had to be treated as a separate event due for licensing reasons as a result they weren't able to promote in the same way as the main event. This explains a lot and I am grateful to the organizers for reaching out to me to explain this.

All in all, I am very glad I went. The venue was very nice, it was a great opportunity to meet some brewers and fellow beer geeks and to try a wide variety of really excellent beers. The VIP ticket was definitely worth it as the pass got me admitted to the event a half hour early and gave me access to the Bushwakker beers for only $10 more. Also the free chips and popcorn was a nice touch and the water jugs at glass rinsing station were always kept full. Next time (and I'll happily go again) I won't leave the Beer Education to the last few minutes. Also, it would be nice to be able to buy a few bottles to take home though I'm sure that would be another regulatory nightmare for the organizers.

Propeller IPA (Canada - Nova Scotia - Halifax) 6.5%

Propeller IPA (Canada - Nova Scotia - Halifax) 6.5%

A lovely brass colour in a glass. Very hoppy and bitter as the style demands, this award winning beer is also strongly malty and quite sweet as well. The hops character is green but also resiny and reminds me of sap from a spruce tree. Very nice, very balanced and, like all really good IPAs, it would pair well with pretty much any type of flavourful food.

Hoppelganer Double IPA - Rockbottom Brewpub (Canada - Nova Scotia - Halifax)

Hoppelganer Double IPA - Rockbottom Brewpub (Canada - Nova Scotia - Halifax) 8.0%

The powerfully hoppy aroma is strongly citrus, floral (maybe even apricot) with pine and some melon that, in combination, have some touches of pineapple. Apricot-orange and cloudy in a glass. The taste is very bitter and pumped full of pine. Malty sweetness tries to get through but gets deliciously stomped on by spicy hops loaded with citrus tones. An awesome Double IPA from my favourite brewpub in Halifax.

India Pale Ale - Big Rock (Canada - Alberta - Calgary) 5.5%

India Pale Ale - Big Rock (Canada - Alberta - Calgary) 5.5%

Earthy, malty aroma with some honeyed sweetness and a green hops touch that reminds me of fresh celery. Moderately bitter with some melon (cantaloupe) tones, sweet and slightly musty. A slightly amber colour in a glass with a decent head and lacing. Not a bad beer at all, very sessionable, but not quite the taste I expect from an IPA, the hops character is just a little more subdued than some other IPAs.