Yeasayer

 Billed as a “lagerbier”, Yeasayer is a 4.8% pale lager from Bloomfield, Ontario’s Matron Fine Beer. Clear and pale gold, Yeasayer comes out of its 355mL can with a sudsy white head.

Yeasayer features a fresh, grainy nose with a crackle of noble hops as subtext. The flavour is metallic, grainy, and surprisingly hoppy, with a faintly floral character. The beer has a crisp and lively texture that makes it extremely guzzle-able.

This li’l lager from Matron is a bright and enjoyable product. In my vernacular, it’s a classic early Sunday afternoon football watching brew. Just a classic beer to accompany the early lineup of games.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Inexplicable Grisette

 Inexplicable Grisette is a bright and bubbly low-alcohol ale in the French style—a session-friendly cousin to the saison. The beer comes from Toronto, Ontario’s Eastbound Brewing Co. It clocks in at just 3.2% and comes in 355mL cans. It’s a sunny golden brew with a sudsy white head.

IG has a lively yeast aroma that comprises both citrus and spice elements. The flavour is primarily yeasty, with a bit of perfume character. The back end is short and crisp and the texture is quite effervescent.

IG has quite a lot of flavour for a low octane brew. It has a pretty agreeable vibe and I’d be glad to buy it again. A nice little beer to wile away a sweltering afternoon.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Ringwood Ale

 Born and bred in Toronto, Ringwood Ale comes from the venerable Granite Brewery & Tied House. It’s a 5% blonde ale made to star the Ringwood strain of yeast. The beer is golden in colour and slightly cloudy, under a sudsy white head.

Ringwood’s nose is a blend of toasty and malty, with a vibe that is slightly metallic and also a wee bit fruity. The flavour is initially sweet, with apple cinnamon notes. The back end is a bit toasty, still sweet, and it has a modest bitterness.

My outstanding spouse used a can of Ringwood to create a truly outstanding loaf of beer bread and the result was bangin’. The yeastiness and balance really hit the spot.

Blonde ales are seldom my favourite, because they tend toward moderation and milquetoast-iness. Ringwood had considerably more elegance than the average blonde ale, and I thought it was pretty good stuff. I’d have liked a bit more hops presence at the finish, but otherwise it was pretty solid.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

At Last Hazy IPA

 

Hamilton’s Merit Brewing is a venue that I’ve long heard great things about and, had the pandemic not scuttled my summer travel plans, is almost certainly a place whose door I’d have darkened in the flesh. Instead, I placed an order for a box of 500mL bottles. Among the bottles that showed up at my home is At Last Hazy IPA. The 6.5% ale came in a bottle with a generic but pretty Merit label and an info tag. The beer inside was bright gold and hazy as heck, with a very sudsy layer of bright white head.

At Last has a sharp tropical fruit nose—mango and passionfruit. The flavour is sweet and fruity, trending toward a lightly floral hop finish.

The hazy IPA market in Ontario is, in a word, bustling. Still, At Last managed to stand out above the horde by demonstrating an elegant and balanced flavour and an extremely smooth texture. Nothing about this beer made it unique—rather, it was just well put together stuff that ticked all of the hazy IPA boxes in an above average fashion. Drinking this hazer has got me amped to try the saison and imperial stout in my Merit order.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Up and At Them

 One of the best looking homage labels in Ontario belongs to Indie Alehouse’s Up and At Them, an American Wheat Beer with Mango & Tangerine. The label and name are nods to Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy—classic peripheral Simpsons characters. The tag line of the 5% ale is actually: “Not radioactive, man.” This Torontonian ale comes in 500mL bottles. It’s a hazy, dull gold beer that pours with an extremely sudsy white foam.

Up and At Them has a yeasty nose with a tangerine twist. The flavour has citrus and tropical elements, built atop a yeasty plinth. The mango has gotta be in there somewhere, but I didn’t track it down.

This is a tangy take on a wheat beer. The flavour is pretty solid and the branding is next level.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

All Together India Pale Ale

 

According to the 355mL can, All Together India Pale Ale is billed as a “worldwide collaboration brewed to support hospitality professionals”. The collab is spearheaded by Other Half Brewing in Brooklyn, NY, and this particular iteration comes from Eastbound Brewing Co. The label states that a “portion of the proceeds from this beer will be used as a helping hand to support the out of work members of our own Eastbound team during this tough time.”

This take on All Together is a 6.5% IPA. It’s a modestly hazy and enthusiastically carbonated beer with a nice golden colour and a fluffy white head. The aromatics are juicy, sweet, and a touch yeasty—it has citrus notes, pineapple, and some berry too. The flavour has some juiciness well balanced against a respectable bitterness, with orange juice, grapefruit, and floral hops.

This is a pretty simple IPA, with a nice flavour. It isn’t all that memorable, but the philanthropic and collaborative nature of the beer makes it a solid choice.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Fancy Walker

 

A Belgian dubbel from the team at Eastbound Brewing Co., Fancy Walker is a 7.4% brew sold in 355mL cans. The copy declares the flavour elements are: “figs, brown sugar, dates”. The beer has a handsome ruddy brown colour and it pours with a thin layer of creamy suds.

Fancy Walker has a sweet, malty aroma that has sticky date and toffee notes. The flavour, too, is sweet and sticky. It has molasses, tobacco, and dried fruit elements, initially, and a considerable amount of roasted malt throughout. The beer does have some Belgian-style yeastiness, but it is pretty understated. Also, the booziness is fairly low-key.

I thought that Fancy Walker was a pretty solid take on the dubbel style. I’d have liked a bit more yeast emphasis, but otherwise, it was an enjoyable strong ale.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Janky

Janky is a much ballyhooed IPA from Bloomfield, Ontario’s Matron Fine Beer. It’s a 6% ale sold in 355mL cans. The stuff is hazy and dull gold on colour, and it pours with a picturesque cover of off white suds.

Janky has an elegant, slightly floral grapefruit aroma. The flavour is juicy, yet subtle, with decent back end bitterness. The beer has a lazy, mellow texture.

This is a subtle, luxurious take on the IPA. The booze count is on the low end of the spectrum, and the flavour is mild, but finely tuned—there are no rough edges on this ale. I try to ignore Twitter hype when reviewing beers, but it think the stans have got this one right—it is a very good, modern take on the IPA. It also has the most even, durable, and pillowy head I’ve seen on an Ontario IPA in quite a while. A subtle, well made effort from a brewery that seems to be developing a serious reputation. I’d have liked a bit more oomph toward the finish, but otherwise, the beer has it.

 

 

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.

Rage and Love Cream Soda Sour

A lurid pink potion, Rage and Love Cream Soda Sour is a 5.4% ale from the team at Toronto’s Rainhard Brewing Co. The beer, sold in 355mL cans, contains vanilla, as well as a “hit” of blackberry, sour cherry, and lychee—it isn’t immediately clear whether these are ingredients or flavour notes, though I suspect the former.

Through a modes off-white head, R&LCSS does indeed have a sweet, cream soda-esque nose, packed with vanilla notes and a touch of cherry. The flavour has a seriously rapid sweet-to-sour progression. The front end is vanilla sweet, but this is subsumed by a tart and fruity finish in a blink. The beer is only modestly sour, which makes it fairly approachable for the style.

This little sour ale is a quirky piece of work. It genuinely has cream soda elements, which are a bit divisive—for instance, I don’t really love that particular soda. However, the beer is pretty enjoyable, with modest sourness, an interesting cornucopia of fruit notes, and a brief sweetness.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Danger Close IIPA

A modestly strong and impressively juicy imperial IPA from the gang at Indie Alehouse in Toronto, Danger Close IIPA is an 8.1% ale. Sold in 500mL bottles with a label featuring some sort of pineapple armament, the beer is an extremely hazy brownish gold. It pours with a sudsy white head.

Danger Close has a potent and extremely sweet pineapple aroma. The beer has a smooth texture and it delivers a sweet, tropical flavour. Not particularly bitter, the beer finishes sweetly with some citrus elements and some boozy heat.

This beer is juicy and sweet—verging on too sweet. It’s easy to forget that this smooth offering is actually an imperial IPA.

 

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Better Days Pale Ale

A perk of being a known beer geek is that people who don’t really know you still try to dazzle you with beery gifts. Such was the case when new pal BB provided me with a 473mL can of Better Days Pale Ale. The beer comes from Jarvis, Ontario’s Concession Road Brewing Co. It’s a 5.1% ale with a lowly 16 IBUs. It de-canned with a a clearish rich gold colour, loads of carbonation, and a thick layer of off-white head.

Better Days has a fruity, grain-heavy aroma. The flavour is extremely sweet, with considerable maltiness and a slightly metallic streak. The beer has berry and nectarine notes, and a bit of toffee on the finish, alongside a faint English-style bitterness.

My first glimpse of Concession Road’s offering didn’t exactly wow me, but it did make me aware of an Ontario brewery that was otherwise unknown to me and that I’ll look out for in the future. Perhaps a visit will be in the offing post-pandemic? And I did enjoy it a fair bit, despite it being notably too sweet. And many thanks to BB for her generosity and thoughtfulness.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Red Leaf Lager

An amber lager from Toronto’s Great Lakes Brewery, Red Leaf Lager is a 5% brew sold in 473mL cans. The beer has limited bitterness (just 10 IBUs) and a striking copper colour. It pours with a thin, off-white head.

Red Leaf has an agreeable toasted malt aroma with a bit of brown sugar sweetness and a whiff of copper. The flavour is malty, first, and also features toast, copper, and some confectionery sweetness.

Ontario doesn’t have nearly enough amber lagers, so Red Leaf really stands out because it is a pretty good one in a marketplace that lacks peers. It is smooth and easy-drinking, but flavourful, too. I’d have liked the bitterness to be amped up a bit, but otherwise I have few complaints.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Bachelor Chow

 Bachelor Chow is a collab between Toronto’s People’s Pint Brewing Company and Bent Mallet Brewing. A wheat IPA sold in 500mL bottles with awesome labels, the beer contains 6.4% alcohol. It’s a dull gold ale with a modest but durable layer of off-white head.

B.C. has a sweet nose that weds caramel and citrus. The flavour follows a similar pattern, with creamy caramel maltiness at the outset, some coppery notes throughout, and builds to a decently bitter grapefruit crescendo. The use of wheat lends this IPA a certain silkiness that hits the spot.

This is a fun beer—flavourful, with both British and west coast IPA tendencies, as well as a smooth texture, and an excellent label. Could be stronger, though, and it is a touch sweet. Overall, dug it.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.