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.