Brick Maker Common

Brick Maker Common is a Toronto take on the California common/steam beer style. A 5% 35 IBU lager from Muddy York Brewing Co., the beer comes in 355mL cans. It’s a sparkling clear golden brew with an off white foam.

Brick Maker has a crisp, metallic and floral aroma. The flavour kicks off sweetly with lots of grain. The back end picks up a bit of metallic momentum and builds to a nice, floral hoppiness.

This is a rad little common—crisp and flavourful, with a healthy hops quotient. I enjoyed this in February, but it’d be a bad mother in hottest July.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Sling Shot California Common

"Fuel for a revolution" is how Toronto's Radical Road Brewing Co. describes its beer, at least on the 473mL can of Sling Shot California Common. An amber-hued lager, Sling Shot checks in at the baseline 5% alcohol. It pours with a very sudsy eggshell head and is quite hazy.

This beer packs an amplified and interesting nose that combines notes of cereal, well roasted malt, and copper. The flavour is similarly constructed, but considerably more mild. Much more assertive than a macro pale lager, Sling Shot is far milder than the average pale ale, but it boasts a sort of mindful calm that I found engaging. The beer moves from sweet to faintly bitter.

To its benefit, I found this subtle sauce to have an interesting taste. Perhaps it was slightly too metallic, but it was otherwise quite nice.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Workman

Styled an "Alabama Common", Workman is based on the California Common style. It hails from Madison, Alabama, where it is assembled by an outfit known as the Blue Pants Brewery. I picked up a 12oz. bottle of this 5% alcohol lager during a trip to the American South.

It was a cloudy golden-orange brew topped with a very sturdy off-white head. It had a grain-driven, malty and slightly bready aroma. The flavour started with yeasty tendencies, almost like a Belgian blonde ale. It proved to be a pretty full flavoured and punch little lager. There is a healthy malt-heavy profile with an uptick of hops at the finish.

I found this to be a tasty and interesting beer.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Shack Common

Shacklands Brewing Co., is an up and coming brewery out of Toronto, Ontario. According to my bartender at the estimable Bar Hop, Shacklands is a one-man operation that brews out of the Junction Craft Brewery.

I had a pint of Shack Common on tap. At 5.5%., this cloudy brassy brown beer topped with a seemingly immortal off-white head is listed as a "California Common/North American IPA Hybrid".

Nose is fresh, with sweet, malty leanings and a healthy hop background. It's mouthfeel is pretty mellow, though there is ample flavour. Tastes starts faintly sweetly, with toasty malt leanings and then climbs the hop ladder for a modestly, but undeniably bitter finish.  

This proved to be a thoroughly hopped, ably flavourful take on the California common style. It's got some toasty malt qualities, loads of booze (for a CC), and a dry, earthy and bitter finish.

I'm definitely going to be keeping my eye out for Shacklands' beers.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.