Tuesday, 3 March 2020

Grenadier Premium Lager

A strong lager sold in a 473mL can festooned with cherry blossoms and a grenade, Grenadier Premium Lager is a 6% pale lager from Toronto’s Grenadier Brewing Co. The beer is clear, with a rich golden colour and a quickly thinning white head.

Grainy and slightly gritty to the nose, GPL weds cereal sweetness with dry, slightly metallic aromatics. The flavour starts sweetly, with grain and floral elements, and moves into a realm of faint bitterness. I’m a rank hypocrite to complain about a beer’s strength getting in its way because I typically opine that they should be stronger, but reaching the 6% threshold hampers GPL’s crispness and 

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t love “premium” as a qualifier for a craft beer, as I find it is basically meaningless. I won’t rehash that argument except to say that this is another beer that falls into that christening trap. Issues with the name notwithstanding, the beer deserves some plaudits and earns some admonishment. Given the volume of breweries in the province, there really aren’t that many Ontario lagers that dare to exceed 5% and GPL should be praised for going strong. But its additional ballast also caused problems—namely too much sweetness and a crispness issue. While it doesn’t crackle, the finish does offer a nice amount of bitterness.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

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