Black IPA - Big Rig Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Ottawa)

Black IPA - Big Rig Brewing (Canada - Ontario - Ottawa) 6.2%

The first things I check when I have been served or pour a Black IPA are the obvious ones: is it dark and is it hoppy. Big Rig's Black IPA meets both those criteria. It is a very dark (and damn near opaque) mahogany colour (or maybe even darker than that) with a thick and creamy mocha coloured head of foam. It also has a very nice resiny hop aroma with loads of tropical fruit tones. To the taste the first thing I noticed was a earthy, toasted, nutty, slightly coffee-like malt flavour followed closely by a strong hops flavour of cedar and resin with a strongly bitter finish. This is a really nice Black IPA and, to top it all off, the design on the can is super cool.

Vulcan Ale - Pluto's Moon Beer Company

Vulcan Ale - Pluto's Moon Beer Company 5.4%

A dark amber in a glass, nearly brown when not held up to the light. Slightly hoppy (resin, cedar), toasty, sweet with a touch of something sticky - all said it reminds me a little bit a thin molasses.

Strongly sweet flavour but it is nicely toasty (just on the verge of turning into something roasty) and there is just enough hoppy bitterness. Some subtle wooden tones and faint red, fruity flavours round out this Irish Red Ale. I would say that Vulcan Ale is hoppier and just a little sweeter than an Irish Red ought to be but I enjoyed drinking it. Most importantly the name and can/label are awesome.

Live long and prosper.

Boundary Ale - Moosehead (Canada - New Brunswick - Saint John)

Boundary Ale - Moosehead (Canada - New Brunswick - Saint John) 5.3%

A deep amber colour in a glass with a head of off-white foam. An earthy but also resiny and sticky hops aroma with caramelized sugars and a malty body.

A slightly sweeter flavour than I expected, caramelized sugars that are on the red side of the Maillard process and just not quite roasty. Definitely still some hop tones: resin, cedar and a dry bitterness with just a bit of citrus. This ale is nicely balanced and has an appetizingly bitter aftertaste.

In my opinion this is the best beer that Moosehead makes (as a New Brunswicker that is saying something) and it's very nice: refreshing and complex. Boundary Ale is a lot (but not exactly) like an English IPA even if its hops character is a touch resiny.

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.

Hops and Bolts India Pale Lager - Mad and Noisy Brewing - Creemore Springs (Canada - Ontario - Creemore)

Hops and Bolts India Pale Lager - Mad and Noisy Brewing / Creemore Springs (Canada - Ontario - Creemore) 5.3%

Slightly cloudy, full gold with a distinct orange hue and a big, frothy off-white and touched with orange or gold head of foam that leaves some pretty nice lacing as it fades.

Hoppy cedar or pine aroma with a little resin, some malty tones and something that is distinctly lager-like in there too. Caramelized malt coupled with resin and cedar in the flavour. Fairly bitter, particularly in the finish. A roasty and a little sticky aftertaste with a grain flavour that sometimes borders on nutty.

Hops and Bolts is a neat example of an India Pale Lager, essentially a very hoppy lager, and I quite like it. It is certainly worth a try, especially if you are in Ontario, because it is tasty and it might be fun to compare Hops and Bolts with a similarly hoppy India Pale Ale to consider the differences between a lager and an ale.

Tokyo Black Porter - Yo-Ho Brewing (Japan - Nagano) 5.0%

Tokyo Black Porter - Yo-Ho Brewing (Japan - Nagano) 5.0%

Super dark, black and totally opaque in a glass with a brown frothy head. Raisin, grain and coffee, a little dark chocolate and smoke in the aroma.

Delicious dark malt flavours: smoke, coffee, raisins and other dried dark fruit flavours, complete with a dark chocolate backer. The smoke flavour is quite heavy and has a charred characteristic to it. The malt dimension as a whole is thick and delightful, and the mouthfeel is quite smooth and creamy. This porter is not too bitter for all it's smokiness and on the whole is exceptionally well balanced. Tokyo Black is exceptionally good and I heartily recommend it.

Asahi Super Dry (Japan) 5.0%

Asahi Super Dry (Japan) 5.0%

A lightly malty, lightly hopped aroma. Asahi pours a shade paler than full gold with a head of respectable. The taste is quite sweet, lightly malty (a bit like the way canned corn smells) and lightly bitter but with a more bitter than expected finish. Basically Asahi Super Dry is a typical international lager but I'd choose it over Budweiser or Molson Canadian if I was at a Yomiuri Giants game at the Tokyo Dome (and those beers were my only choices). Also it comes in a can that is frankly adorably small and perfect, I suppose, for the commuting salaryman.

The Cannery Collection - Cannery Brewing (Penticton)

IPA - Canning Brewery (Canada - British Columbia - Penticton) 6.0%

A dark amber colour in a glass with a nice frothy head and good lacing. A malty aroma with a hefty dose of resin and pine. Quite a bitter hops taste with roasty malt and full of resin and pine. Just a few red fruit flavours intermixed throughout and maybe just a touch of citrus in the finish.

Naramata Nut Brown Ale - Cannery Brewing (Canada - BC - Penticton) 5.5%

A very dark brown in a glass, nearly opaque, with a big frothy head. Roasty molasses and brown bread aroma. A nutty brown bread taste with molasses, touches of hops and some dark fruit hints. A pretty nice brown with a light mouthfeel that keeps it refreshing.

Anarchist Amber Ale - The Cannery Brewing Co. (Canada - British Columbia - Penticton) 5.5%

A roasty and bitter aroma that is yet a little spicy and tangy with red fruit esters. Amber in a glass with a big fluffy head. Definitely some floral red fruit esters in the taste too, a bit of red ale stickiness and a fair amount of hops comes through with a little pine, a bit of something astringent and some spiciness like a very mild cilantro. Malty also with grain flavours, toast and caramel sweetness with a roasty aftertaste.

Berthold Keller Premium Lager - Martens (Belgium)

Berthold Keller Premium Lager - Martens (Belgium) 5.0%

The aroma is malty, has dry hops and quite a lot of grain. Gold in a glass. A very nutty flavour that tastes exactly like plain roasted sunflower seeds. A touch of grain and sweetness in a way that reminds me of multigrain toast. Not really much of any hops taste that I expected from a Euro Lager but the is just enough bitterness to balance it nicely. A good very lager, reminiscent of a English Pale Ale in its nuttiness. Also the graphic design of the cool blue coloured can with slick post-modern lettering is very nice.

Two Canadian Beers that are Red in Title but not in Style

Red Racer Pale Ale (Canada - British Columbia - Surrey) 5.0%

First of all it comes in a really cool can. It has a very sweet malty taste with a hops backer. This American Pale Ale (by style not nationality) has a hoppy citrus aroma and is very nice paired with food although the bitter hops can make spicy foods taste even spicier!

Red Baron Premium Blonde Lager (Canada - Ontario - Waterloo) 4.8%

Pale gold in a glass. Sweet and malty. Light in flavour with a somewhat bitter hops touch in the finish which makes it more refreshing than it otherwise would be. A light malty, hoppy aroma. All in all a nicely crafted lager.

Euro Lagers - Part 4: Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria

While hardly representative of Belgian beers, Stella Artois is a large part of Belgium's export market. It is included here with a trio of Euro lagers from Holland and one from Austria.

Stella Artois (Belgium)5.0%

A pronounced mix of sweet maltiness and dry hops. The result is a sweet moderately bitter lager that is refreshing and characteristically well balanced. There is also a detectable skunky off-flavour, that comes about due to the use of a green bottle which doesn't block UV-B the way a brown bottle does. Though technically an off-flavour I feel the skunkiness adds to the balance of the beer by forming a bridge between the malt and the dry hops.

Hollandia (The Netherlands) 5.0%

A somewhat yeasty, grain aroma. Full gold in a glass. Malty and quite bitter. A slight metallic alcohol flavour which is surprising for a beer that is only 5.0%. A generally unremarkable beer but not bad.

Grolsch (The Netherlands) 5.0%

Its characteristic flip-top bottle is a favourite of home-brewers (read: favourite of mine) and has also seen service as a bottle for homemade hot-sauce. The beer itself is gold in a glass. It tastes quite bitter for a lager with a dry hops flavour. A pleasant and typical European lager.

Heineken (The Netherlands) 5.0%

A creamy malt aroma with a bitter touch of dry hops and a splash of something skunky despite the fact that this beer came in a half-litre can and not a green glass bottle. There is also banana in the aroma. Gold in a glass with perfect frothy head.

The taste is sweetly malty, chaulky with a distinct but not overpowering banana flavour. Not very bitter at all and not much of the dry hops flavour I get in the aroma, as a result Heineken seems to be more like a North American, rather than a Euro, lager.

Stiegl (Austria - Salzburg) 4.9%

Such a warm sweet malty scent. The aroma doesn't carry over that strongly into the flavour. Quite bitter, hoppy. Has barest hints of apple and nut. Yellow, fizzy, highly drinkable and more bitter than most lager/pilsner types; although it is bitter without a sprucy hops punch like an IPA, there is still a bit of hops character to go along with the bitterness and fizz. Also, the old-style design of the beer can is quite likeable.


 In case you missed it, here are the earlier Parts to this Euro Lager Saga:

Euro Lagers - Part 1: The Czech Republic
Euro Lagers - Part 2: Scandinavia
Euro Lagers - Part 3: Germany

Budweiser Shot 7.0%

Budweiser Shot 7.0%

It looks like Bud (gold in a glass), smells like bud (slightly skunky, vaguely malty) and tastes like Bud (sweet, a little skunky, malty; maybe a little more malty) but with an alcohol burn. It comes in a four-pack of mini-cans.

Interestingly, to me anyway, there is actually less total alcohol in a 236 ml can of Budweiser Shot (16.52 ml pure alcohol) than there is in regular 355 ml 5% Budweiser (17.75 ml pure alcohol). Though you can still drink this stuff much more quickly and therefore get drunker. Also they seem designed to sneak into places being pocket-sized and sporting a sharp looking black colour scheme. All in all, if you are a Bud fan and want to get wasted... well, this Bud's for you.

International Lagers From Around the World

International lagers are a constant in the world: travel nearly anywhere in world and someone (seemingly often owned by InBev) will be brewing a bland, yellow, fizzy beer. In this post I review four of them all of which except for Polar Bear are available in beer stores pretty much everywhere.
Cheers!


Sol (Mexico) 4.5%

Gold in a glass. Smells quite malty, a little skunky probably because the clear bottle doesn't protect the beer from sunlight like a brown bottle would. Taste is very mild, quite sweet, fairly malty. Essentially no aftertaste.  A nice bottle cap and label. If you are just looking for something yellow, fizzy, refreshing with very little flavor Sol beer does the trick. On the other hand if you are looking for a beer with an interesting flavour look elsewhere.


Red Stripe (Jamaica) 4.7%

Sweet, not very bitter. Not as carbonated as most international lagers, smoothly malty and with a slight metallic and umami finish. Not much to it but a distinctive bottle. Because of this bottle and especially the country of origin I'm always disappointed when I remember Red Stripe isn't a ginger beer, oh well.



 Sapporo (Japan) 5.0%

A very light gold colour in a glass, this Japanese beer (brewed in Guelph, Ontario) is very, very light tasting. Slightly malty, slightly hoppy aroma. Slightly malty flavour but it somehow manages to not come across as watery, which is nice. Eminently drinkable: you could pound back a ton of these with ease and I'm sure it would go with just about any type of food because it's so bland. Sapporo must be popular with Japanese salary-men as it makes such a nice after work beer because it's so refreshing. However, there just isn't much to Sapporo other than being yellow and fizzy: a typical international lager but a good one if that's all you are looking for. The can is also really cool with a raised logo and Japanese characters stamped into the side of it.


  Polar Bear (Iceland) 4.7%

A really normal international lager: not overly malty, sweet or bitter. Distinctly indistinct.

Happy Octoberfest!

Paulaner Oktoberfest Bier (Germany) 6.0%

The most notable thing about this beer is its awesome format. The glass, the 1 litre can of beer and the cardboard flaps holding the two together cost somewhere in the realm of $13.00 at liquor stores in New Brunswick and is well worth it; the glass alone is worth nearly that much to me.

The beer itself pours clear and golden. The aroma is malty and sweet but also hoppy, and the taste is much the same. Very pleasant but mild tasting, a combination that would make it very easy to drink lots of this beer (I think that's the idea).

I highly recommend this purchase, the glass is fantastic, the beer is good and traditional, and the can itself is sturdy and has a great label (piggy bank perhaps?).

Happy Oktoberfest!