IPA No. 12

The dozenth entry in Collective Arts Brewing’s IPA series, IPA No. 12 is a 6.9% ale made with Nelson Sauvin and Mosaic hops. Sold in 473mL cans that have a cheery octopus, the Hamiltonian beer has a golden glow and a hazy aspect, under a fluffy white foam.

The “Dozen” has a nose that combines good ol’ fashioned orange juice and a whiff of white wine. The flavour has similar notes, but in reversed proportion: white wine is the primary element, and citrus takes the silver medal. The New England-style IPA has a very smooth mouthfeel and not a lot of bitterness.

IPA No. 12 is a worthy entry to the Collective Arts series. Though it isn’t particularly memorable, it’s a solidly built NEIPA with good strength and lots of juiciness.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Kremlin Russian Imperial Stout

Walkerville Brewery’s limited edition Kremlin Russian Imperial Stout is a 10%, 60 IBU brute sold in a seriously impressive matte black 750mL bottle with a representation of the Moscow Kremlin on the label.

This beer from Windsor, Ontario is black and pours with a tan head. It has sticky molasses and roasted malts on the nose and a flavour packed with coffee, plum, leather, and vanilla notes. Kremlin has a sweet to bitter progression, with a back end that touches on high cacao chocolate and yesterday’s espresso.

As with many Russian Imperial Stouts, I feared this one would be either too sweet or too bitter; however, it really split the uprights, offering a beer that is big and balanced, with only a slight lean toward too sweet. It’s also highly boozy and assertive. Walkerville’s take on the RIS is laudable. It might not be the very best I’ve ever had, but it’s worth mentioning in the conversation. As I often whine, Ontario’s breweries don’t always stout like I’d like them to, but this one is aces.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.

That’s a Paddlin’

Brewed in Toronto at the Brunswick Bierworks, That’s a Paddlin’ is made by Danish brewer Mikkeller. It’s a New England Style DIPA brewed to 8%. The beer is sold in 473mL cans with a label that features a not-so-subtle shout out to a classic Simpsons moment.

The dull gold strong ale is hazy and pretty well carbonated. It pours with a durable off-white cap of suds and boasts an understated tropical fruit aroma. For a strong beer. That’s a Paddlin’ has an amazingly smooth mouthfeel. Its flavour is subtle for the style, with some sweet citrus and passion fruit notes and some mellow melon leanings leading into a reasonably bitter finish.

This beer is subtly boozy and shyly flavoured for a big beer. It’s good and I liked it, but it ain’t brash like I usually look for in a DIPA. And, it should be said, the label is a gem.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Devil’s Punchbowl India Session Lager

Hamilton’s Clifford Brewing Co. makes my favourite regularly available Ontario porter. On the other end of the colour spectrum, they’re also the driving force behind Devil’s Punchbowl India Session Lager, a highly carbonated 4.8% dry-hopped brew sold in slick and stylish 473mL cans.

Devil’s Punchbowl is a straw gold lager with a slight haze and a hefty crown of vivid white suds. It has white wine and tropical fruit tendencies in the nose and a flavour that treads the same waters. The beer has a sharp initial note that is both florally hoppy and quite grainy. The back end is laced with citrus notes.

The drawback of Devil’s Punchbowl is the mouthfeel, which is a little thin and overly smooth—I was hoping for a bit more of the intersection of pale lager crispness and dry-hopped zest. However, the flavour is definitely agreeable—extremely so. I bet if I was drinking this beer on a sunny Saturday afternoon in August, I’d have a different tune than today, a dismally cold December Wednesday night. Long story short: I’ll definitely buy this stuff again and it’ll continue to be tasty.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Vanilla Orchid Brown Ale

Another beer from the Society of Beer Drinking Ladies, brewed at Henderson Brewing Co. in Toronto, is their Vanilla Orchid Brown Ale, a 5% ale sold in 473mL cans. The beer is “steeped with oats and vanilla orchid roobios tea.” It’s a copper coloured ale and it pours with a modest blanket of creamy head.

The VOBA has really soft, floral aromatics with definite tea notes that’s a bit fruity and quite sweet. The flavour has notes of herbal tea, floral perfume, sticky toffee, blueberries, and vanilla over top of a subtle, malty base. The back end has delicate but undeniable tannin bitterness, but not a lot of hop character. From end to end, this beer possesses a mellow and fascinating profile. The only significant substantive knock against this little potion is that it is a touch too floral/sweet to crack a second in a sitting.

If you tune in to the Bitter World from time to time, you might notice that one of my common refrains is that Ontario could use more brown ales. Admittedly, when I have made that observation in the past, I was typically referring to the classic, traditional style. However, the SOBDL/Henderson’s Vanilla Orchid Brown Ale has opened my eyes to an interesting variation on the classic theme and I’d be open to more. So now my cry is “more traditional brown ales and brown ale variants!”

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Woodhouse APA Beer

Watching a little late-season NFL action on a chilly Sunday, I wanted a beer, but didn’t want anything too high octane. So I decided on a nice American pale ale. Woodhouse APA Beer comes from Toronto’s Woodhouse Brewing Co. It’s a 4.9% ale sold in 473mL cans.

The beer is hazy and golden, though its appearance is slightly marred by the appearance of some sediment. It poured with a healthy layer of creamy white suds. Woodhouse APA Beer has a bright, apricot and orange nose. Its flavour is pretty light and fruit-focused, with citrus and orange blossom at the fore. The finish has a little bit of bitterness, but it isn’t as sharp as my ideal APA might be.

I’m someone who really values names. For that reason, I’m always a little irked when I see a beer, like Woodhouse’s APA Beer and the rest of the Woodhouse lineup, that doesn’t take advantage of a proper moniker. That doesn’t change the taste of the beer or its rating—just something that bugs me. The beer itself was decent. I’d have liked less visible sediment and a crunchier hops finish, but I dug the apricot aromatics.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Triple Play Fan Pack: Blackburne Imperial Stout

Named in honour of Lena Blackburne’s Baseball Rubbing Mud which is used to treat MLB baseballs, Original No. 3 Blackburne Imperial Stout is a 9.7% ale made by Toronto’s Left Field Brewery. Sold in 355mL cans, the beer is black with a thick tan head.

The beer has a rich roasted malt aroma accented with chocolate and leather notes. Blackburne has ample kick, with a warm-as-hell booze bill and loads of sweetness. It’s a bit woody with some mocha and dark fruit up front and tobacco and dark roast coffee nethers.

Strong and robust, Blackburne Imperial Stout is a beefy entry in the panoply of Ontario dark ales. It’s a bit sweeter than would be my ideal perhaps, but it’s outsized and flavourful.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Triple Play Fan Pack: Bricks & Mortar

Bricks & Mortar is Left Field Brewery’s coffee porter, brewed with beans from Pilot Coffee Roasters. The Torontonian beer comes comes in 355mL cans and checks in at 6%.

B&M has a cracklin’ dry nose built around a wealth of espresso and roasted malt notes. It has a rich coffee bean flavour, a toasted (almost burnt) malt subtext, and just a whisper of sweetness to add a bit of balance. Bitterness is more than evident at the back, manifested as elements that evoke a cup of French roast.

 

Things I liked about B&M: strong coffee game; decent ABV, and robustly bitter finish. Thing I was less wild about: burnt malt elements, both in aroma and flavour. This beer could have been smoother and differently balanced. Still, as coffee porters go, I’d recommend this one based on its minimal sweetness alone. Left Field makes great beer, so I always feel like I’m splitting hairs when I get critical, but I’ve had better from them.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Triple Play Fan Pack: Sweet Spot Mocha Marshmallow Stout

Whipped up by Toronto’s Left Field Brewery, Sweet Spot Mocha Marshmallow Stout contains lactose sugar, marshmallow, vanilla, cocoa nibs, and coffee beans. It’s sold in 355mL cans and clocks in at 6.2%.

Sweet Spot is a dark brown stout with a thin covering of cream head. It has a sweet, toasted marshmallow and vanilla nose. The beer is pretty sugary, particularly at the front end, with notes of vanilla and marshmallow. The finish has some pretty decent coffee bitterness.

A pretty tasty dessert-style stout with decent strength and a smooth texture, Sweet Spot is enjoyable stuff. It’s a touch too sweet, but otherwise solid.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Triple Play Fan Pack

During the Holiday season, I have a bad (good?) habit of treating myself to a couple of gift packs. This year, I grabbed myself a three-pack from the gang at Left Field Brewery in Toronto--the Triple Play Fan Pack. This little pack features three 355mL cans of dark ales--a coffee porter, a mocha marshmallow stout, and an imperial stout.

Stat tuned to the Bitter World this week for my thoughts on this trio of ales from Left Field.

Oro Blanco Grapefruit Sour

Shortly after American Thanksgiving, I was working through my yearly (ish) listening to Arlo Guthrie’s highly enjoyable anti-war anthem "Alice’s Restaurant Masacree" while I washed a sink of dishes. However, I only had about ten minutes’ worth of dishes and the Masacree clocks in at 18:37, so I had some time to spare on the back end. As a result, I decided to grab a 473mL can of Oro Blanco Grapefruit Sour and give it a go.

Oro Blanco is brewed in Victoria, B.C. by the Phillips Brewing Company. It’s a 4.2% alcohol beer made using wheat, malted barley, grapefruit, lime juice, and lactobacillus yeast. The resulting grog is a hazy, orange gold colour. It pours with a thin cover of white head and has a pungent, tart citrus whiff. As sour beers go, Oro Blanco isn’t assertively mouth-puckering. Rather, it’s tart in a fresh fruit sort of way, with lots of juicy notes to balance things out. The back end sees the sourness pick up steam, but it never ratchets up beyond tanginess.

The beer is refreshing, highly quaffable sour from a great brewery on Canada’s west coast. It’s sessionable on paper, though I can never really get behind the idea of drinking more than one sour ale in a go. In all, it delivers exactly what it promises, and in a pretty agreeable package. This is not a compelling, funky sour; rather, it’s a juicy, tart, and approachable ale.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Cactus Head D.D.H. IPA

Hazy to the point of milkiness, Cactus Head D.D.H. IPA comes from Toronto’s Blood Brothers Brewing. It’s a 6.5% ale sold in 500ml bottles that have a weird, pseudo-medical spiny-headed image on the label—genuinely eye-catching.

As mentioned, the beer is hella hazy; opaque with a light gold colour. It has aromatics they tend toward citrus and floral elements, with a faint whiff of bitterness. The flavour is considerably more assertive than the nose, but with a similar profile: it’s got orange juice notes, some mellow blossom notes, and a back end that modestly picks up the bitterness level, but retains a smooth mouthfeel.

With lots of East Coast IPA flourishes and a pleasant flavour, Cactus Head was an enjoyable double dry-hopped IPA and no mistake about it. It’s not memorable, exactly, but it did taste like a well-made ale, worthy of one of my fave Toronto craft brewers. I’d have liked a bit more aggressive hopping, earlier in the process, to provide more crackling bitterness, though.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Mara

Mara is a weird one. It’s a 9% alcohol bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout brewed with salted peanuts. Born in Toronto and sold in 500mL bottles, Mara is the brainchild of Blood Brothers Brewing. It’s a dark brown ale that pours murkily and with a thin tan head.

To my beak, Mara had a salty, slightly smoky aroma that incorporated a lot of its peanut pedigree. The flavour is honestly pretty wild—it has nuttiness and saltiness, but these notes are played against heavy chocolate elements, coffee, booze, and a woody sweetness. The beer tastes strong, but not 9% strong. And the back end is sweet, with a bourbon streak.

Mara is a weird one. It’s salty, smoky, and strong. It’s sweet, yet savoury. It’s good and interesting, but at $12 a bottle, I’m unlikely to reach for it again. It’s a bit more novelty than truly excellent beer, but there is some flair.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Devil’s Trill XI—Licensed to Trill

I made a trip to Toronto’s Blood Brothers Brewing on a chilly Friday afternoon to pick up my occasional allotment of their excellent Shumei IPA and while I was there, the Beastie Boys-themed label of Devil’s Trill XI—Licensed to Trill Kviek [sic] IPA caught my eye. The brew is a 7% number sold in 500mL bottles. Extremely hazy, Licensed to Trill is a pale gold ale with a fluffy layer of white suds.

Juicy, tropical aromatics feature notes of mango and berries and cream. The flavour is mellow and juicy, initially, with tropical fruit elements, and this gives way to a reasonably bitter, grapefruit finish. The beer has an unusually creamy and smooth mouthfeel with a hint of yogurty tang.

I’m still pretty new to kveik yeast, but I thought that Blood Brothers’ Licensed to Trill handled the quirky strain quite admirably. The beer is flavourful and a little weird. Not at all session-friendly, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’d just have liked for the grapefruit bitterness to have hit a bit harder.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Northern Touch Kveik Lager

For my second round at Toronto’s Laylow Brewing, I opted for a pour of their Northern Touch Kveik Lager. A 5% lager, NT showed up hazy and golden, with a layer of white fluff and a toasty, earthy aroma. Behind that are vaguely tart, fruity esters.

The beer has a flavour is at times sweet and dry, with some woody notes in for the trip. Mostly, though, it’s a yeasty little offering with a slightly winey trend. At the furthest reaches, there was just a hint of smokiness too. The mouthfeel isn’t thick exactly, but it’s definitely sturdy.

My first foray into the marriage of kveik yeast and lager, I found Northern Touch left me feeling mindful. It’s flavour profile was unusual, but definitely agreeable. Not at all crisp, the beer was satisfying in a different sort of lager way.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.