Naughty Otter.

My lil' brudder left me an assortment of beers in exchange for minding his cats over the Labour Day weekend. One of them was a hazy, honey-toned lager named Naughty Otter. With a healthy 5.2% alcohol, this brew comes from the Gananoque Brewing Co., of Gananoque, Ontario. The 473mL can describes the suds as the brewery's "flagship beer"; one that's about "relaxing because you want to and enjoying life at your own pace."

 

I found N.O. to have a big and interesting nose; one that marries fresh grains and sweet fruit notes. The flavour was sweet, but also fairly yeasty, giving the  beer a vaguely Belgian feel. Fruity notes abound--it had a slight berry taste to me, or at least something reminiscent of berries. At 24 IBUs, this stuff had some hops to it for a pale lager, but not as much as a traditional pilsner.

For some inexplicable reason, I didn't have particularly high hopes for Naughty Otter--might just be that the packaging didn't speak to me. However, I found myself really enjoying the stuff. It is too sweet and full for serious session drinking, but a can or two goes down nicely, and with an engagingly unusual flavour. Pretty good spin on the often predictable pale lager style.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.