Border Crossing

 An international collaboration between Hamilton, ON’s Collective Arts Brewing and Buffalo, NY’s Thin Man Brewing, Border Crossing is an aptly named IPA. The beer checks in at 6% and it’s brewed with the engaging trio of Cascade, Simcoe, and Vic Secret hops. Border Crossing is a hazy bastard, with a slightly milky yellow-gold colour, white head, and loads of attractive lace. It comes in 473mL cans that feature a cool hockey illustration.

BC has a juicy, slightly floral nose built around citrus. Likewise, the flavour has a sweet and fruity nature that spotlights orange and grapefruit. And it comes with a smooth and silky texture that makes sipping a treat.

Border Crossing is a good IPA. It’s a lot like a number of others on the market and it doesn’t have much to distinguish itself, though I had few complaints. I’d have liked more booze (naturally!) and a bit more emphasis on the grapefruit side of the citrus equation. I’d definitely buy this one again.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Neon Haze

Neon Haze is, shockingly, a hazy IPA from the team at Amsterdam Brewery in Toronto. A bit under-proof at just 5.7%, the Ontario ale is sold in 473mL cans. It’s a hazy, dull-orange beer with a short-lived off-white head.

NH has an inviting citrus nose, with OJ and sugary citrus at the pole and a little something tropical lurking in the wings. The flavour tracks that pretty consistently, though less sweetly, with juicy fruit notes and a mild, yet agreeable vibe. The back end has a touch of grapefruit bitterness, but it is restrained.

When I caught my first whiff of this beer, my concern was that it’d be too sweet, but I was pleasantly surprised: there is some fruity sweetness, certainly—as there should be—but there is a nice balance with a bit of hops and a crisp, refreshing texture. The beer could be stronger, but it tastes great.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Funk Fuzz

 Funk Fuzz begins life in Whitby, Ontario; nurtured into existence at Town Brewery. It’s a 6.8% hazy IPA that comes in playfully ugly 473mL cans. The beer is an almost milky pale gold, under a silky white head. Bit of sediment, but nothing alarming.

FF has a smooth, tropical fruit aroma—mango and passionfruit, along with some OJ. The flavour has a mellow and sweet initial character, with tropical notes. It picks up a bit of steam at the back end, where citrus bitterness meets a dash of boozy heat.

The beer is almost certainly brewed with oats, since it is incredibly smooth. It tastes pretty good, but there isn’t much to distinguish this hazy IPA in an over-crowded marketplace. The finish is nice, but I’d have liked a more boisterous front end.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Sky Country Hazy IPA

 What does victory taste like? It tastes like Sky Country Hazy IPA from Toronto’s Catapult Brewing Company. Why? Because I got to take home a few 473mL cans after a successful pub trivia night in which our team took top spot. Also, note Marcus Semian taking a home run trot in the photo. Victory!

The beer is a little low octane, at just 5.1% and 22 IBUs. It’s a hazy, dull gold grog and pours with a durable layer of white foam. Sky Country is brewed with flaked oats and Ontario-grown hops. It has a mild but agreeable aroma with a nice tangerine profile. The flavour, too, takes a tangerine-driven approach, over a smooth texture.

Sky Country tastes like victory. It also tastes pretty good. A little too sweet, but with a quality tangerine vibe. I’d definitely have liked a bit more booze and a bit more oomph, though.

Rating 7.0 out of 10.

House Band

 House Band is a hazy IPA from the folks at Toronto’s Rainhard Brewing. Pretty low-octane for an IPA, it checks in at just 5.8%. The beer, brewed with Citra, El Dorado, and Sabro hops, comes in 473mL cans. It’s a handsome dull orange-gold ale and it pours with a perfect cover of off-white head and a tiny bit of sediment.

The beer has sweet mango aromatics with a slight vanilla subtext. The flavour, too, has a lot of juicy mango. The texture is smooth and lush. However, to my palate, there is a slightly discordant note in the finish—something that doesn’t jive with the tropical sweetness.

This beer was pretty good, but I’d have liked the back end to be smoothed out and the alcohol content to be a bit higher.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Call & Response

 A 6% IPA from Toronto’s Rainhard Brewing, Call & Response is made with El Dorado, Mosaic, and Sabro hops. The beer comes in 473mL cans with simple labels. The beer inside is a hazy orange grog with a nimbus of fluffy white foam.

Tropical and citrus fruits drive an enjoyable aroma. It has a juicy, orange-y profile, though the flavour is a little on the thin side. There is a little bit of bitterness, which manifests as floral and citrus.

Something about this beer put me in mind of Orangina, which ain’t all bad. I’d have liked more booze and volume, but the flavour was agreeable.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Live Laugh Love

 

Billed as an “Inspirational IPA”, Indie Alehouse’s Live Laugh Love is a 6.5% hazer. The Toronto beer comes in amazing 473mL cans with the cheery name set out in a hilarious death metal font. The beer is built around a trio of hops: Citra, Lotus, and Strata. Dull orange-gold in colour, Lx3 pours with a velvety eggshell head.

Lx3 has a bright, citrusy aroma, accented with a whisper of vanilla. This hazy IPA has grapefruit and OJ notes, a sticky resin/citrus finish, and just enough sweetness to add some balance.

Live Laugh Love is a delightful little ale—lots to like, not a lot to complain about, and it left me feeling well-pleased. Other than the packaging and the “inspirational” handle, the beer might not be all that memorable, but it’s doubtlessly well-made.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Crash Space

 Crash Space is a hazy IPA from the team at Halo Brewery in Toronto. It’s a 6.3% ale with, according to Halo’s website, “no theoretical IBUs”. The beer is dry-hopped with Azacca, El Dorado, and Vic Secret. It’s sold in 473mL cans.

The beer is a hazy, dull gold individual and it pours with a long-lasting white fog. Crash Space has a stone fruit bouquet, with a citrus bitter back. The flavour is quite delicate, but still lively, with a sweet and juicy tangerine and peach vibe. The beer finishes with citrus, and it has a smooth texture.

Crash Space is a subtle and deep hazy IPA. It’s a flavourful, low-bitterness beer brewed with some skill.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Sunsplit IPA

A beer that gets a lot of positive ink from Ontario’s beer geeks is Sunsplit IPA from Ottawa’s Dominion City Brewing Co. I’ve had it a few times on tap around Toronto (pre-pandemic), but I hadn’t had a chance to review it until I picked up a recent mail order from DCBC. The beer comes in bright 473mL cans and contains a respectable 6.5% alcohol. Sunsplit is hazy, orange-gold in colour, and pours with a foamy white crown.

To my schnoz, Sunsplit is pleasantly juicy, with a tendency toward citrus. It tastes fruity and sweet, with orange juicy and a bit of peaches and cream. There is very little bitterness in this hazer—just a little uptick at the finish. It also has an extremely agreeable texture—very smooth.

I agree with the gang on Beer Twitter that Sunsplit is a very good IPA; however, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it one of Ontario’s elite, if only because I found it a touch too sweet. Otherwise, though, it’s a top tier ale.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Cool Papa Bell IPA

Named in honour of a man reputed to be one of the fastest to ever play baseball, Cool Papa Bell IPA is Left Field Brewery’s tribute to the Negro League star. The beer, brewed in Toronto, is a 6.7% banger that comes in 355mL cans.

CPB is a hazy IPA with a dull gold hue. It pours with a sudsy white head. Cool Papa has a sweet and creamy nose, built around berry and stone fruit, with a little citrus bitterness. The flavour has a wee coconut lilt, and lots of fruit flavour, wrapped around a velvety mouthfeel. The back end has some bitterness, but it’s limited.

Cool Papa is a pretty solid hazy IPA. It’s a bit too sweet, but nowhere near offensively so. The coconut tint isn’t my fave, but it is subtle and does result in a unique flavour.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Alouette 1 Galaxy IPA

Brewed in honour of the first Canadian satellite, Alouette 1 Galaxy IPA is a 6.5% ale from the gang at Dominion City Brewing Co. out of Ottawa. The beer is sold in 355mL cans and brewed with Galaxy hops.

Alouette 1 is an extremely hazy, straw gold beer with a vast crown of white suds. It has mighty juicy aromatics—peachy, with some OJ, too. The flavour sticks to juiciness, with a peaches and cream sweetness, initially, before trending towards citrus and floral bitterness. A really strong feature of this beer is its texture, which is silky and lush.

While I’d argue that Alouette 1 is a bit too sweet, it is otherwise an attractive and well-constructed hazy IPA. If you’d have told me ten years ago when I started blogging that THIS BEER is what passes for an IPA in 2020, I’d have called you a liar and asked you to leave my property, but it is and it’s a very fine one at that.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10.

Bermuda

Toronto’s Bandit Brewery seems to be a double dry hopped IPA factory these days—they offer a bunch of beers in the style, including Bermuda, a hazy 6.5% alcohol effort. Bermuda comes in 355mL cans and it emerges pale gold with a thin white head and an unfortunate amount of yeasty sediment.

Bermuda has a juicy orange and tangerine aroma. Flavour-wise, the beer has an OJ vibe, with some floral sweetness. The back end has a bit of citrus hoppiness.

This beer tastes quite nice, but it’s not exactly beautiful. I’d need to have the sediment issues taken care of before I’d buy this one again.

Rating: 6.0 out of 10.

Hazy New England IPA with Clementine

The fourth collaboration between the Society of Beer Drinking Ladies and Toronto’s Henderson Brewing Co., Hazy New England IPA with Clementine gives you almost everything you need to know with its name. The beer, sold in 473mL cans, contains 6.5% alcohol. Along with clementine peel, the beer is brewed with flaked wheat and flaked oats. It’s a hazy golden orange brew and it pours with a durable white foam.

 

This hazy NEIPA has a bright, fruity aroma—juicy with some floral elements. The flavour has clementine to spare—it’s bursting with orange juiciness, supplemented with pith and peel bitterness.

The result is a cheery, summertime beer brewed with (in my mind anyway) a fruit synonymous with the holiday season.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Replicant Haze New England IPA

A juicy 6.2% brew, Replicant Haze New England IPA comes from People’s Pint Brewing Co. The Torontonian beer is sold in 500mL bottles. It’s a hazy orange-gold brew with a sudsy white head. According to the People’s Pint website, the beer is brewed with oats, as well as a quartet of hops: Amarillo, Centennial, Mosaic, and Prince Edward County Cluster.

 

Replicant Haze has tropical fruit aromatics, a nice sweet-bitter balance, and a smooth texture. The flavour has pineapple, mango, and peach elements, with a floral hoppiness.

This is a pretty enjoyable NEIPA from a great little brewery. It’s not PP’s best offering, but it tastes pretty good all the same. I’d have liked a bit more booze, but the mellow texture is definitely a solid attribute.

Rating: 7.5 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.

Junction Hazy IPA

A New England-style ale from Toronto, Junction Hazy IPA is a 6.2% brew from Junction Craft Brewery. The beer, which clock’s in 473mL cans, is a gently hazy dull-gold colour and pours with a puff of white suds.

JHIPA has a bashful aroma punctuated with tropical fruit notes. The flavour is considerably more sweet and substantial than the nose, with mango and pineapple tones, a malty and metallic base, and a decent bitter finish.

Junction Hazy IPA is a slightly over-sweet offering that isn’t actually all that hazy. There are some nice flavour notes, and there is balance between malt and bitterness. However, in a cluttered market where hazy IPAs are over-represented, this one falls into the average category

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Brand New Day NEIPA w/Galaxy, El Dorado & Mosaic

A beer from the FVX Series from Toronto’s Granite Brewery, Brand New Day NEIPA w/Galaxy, El Dorado & Mosaic is a 6.3% ale. Sold in 473mL cans, Brand New Day is a super swampy, hazy ale with a dull orange colour and a layer of creamy off-white head.

BND has a substantial fruit nose with notes of grapefruit and strawberry, and a boozy pineapple energy. Tropical fruit sweetness is front facing and continues through the whole experience, and the back end picks up a bit of bitter momentum—I’d have sworn it was higher than the listed 28 IBUs, but there you go.

As NEIPAs go, I thought that Granite’s Brand New Day was a winner. I liked the fruity medley of flavours, the slightly above style bitterness, and cloudy as hell dull colour. It also had a pleasantly mellow mouthfeel. As with most NEIPAs, I’d have liked the booze quotient to be a bit higher, but that’s my beef with the style rather than the fault of this one. The beer isn’t elite, but it’s certainly enjoyable as heck.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Life’s a Hazy Beach IPA

It says something about Toronto’s Saulter Street Brewery that it took me a while before I tried one of their beers that didn’t interest me. Bound to happen, I guess, but I was surprised when I cracked a 473mL can of Life’s a Hazy Beach IPA and found that it wasn’t to my taste.

LaHB has solid strength at 7% and it looks nice, with a copper hue and a white head, though it should be noted that the beer isn’t actually all that hazy. For aromatics, coconut and pineapple notes are prominent, and do provide a beachy ambiance. However, where things go south for me is the flavour, which I found to be an unpalatable combo of pineapple and metallic notes. There is some bitterness, primarily at the back end, which salvages things to an extent, but the truth is I just don’t really like this beer.

I should say, I don’t think that the beer is flawed or that it wasn’t brewed with Saulter Street’s usual acumen—rather, I just don’t love the stuff. Another person might well love it to the moon and that’s swell with me—it just doesn’t work for me.

Rating: 6.0 out of 10.

Shadow Chaser IPA

Shadow Chaser IPA hails from Toronto, where it is coaxed into existence by the team at Indie Alehouse Brewing Co. It’s a low octane (5.5%) hazy IPA sold in 500mL bottles.

I already dropped the adjective “hazy”, but my thesaurus doesn’t really have another felicitous vocable to describe the look of this ale: this shit’s hazy. It’s yellow-gold in colour and pours with a fluffy cap of bright white head. The label indicates that Shadow Chaser is made “with a new hop varietal”, but it doesn’t name the hop (though the Indie Alehouse bottleshop website lists Idaho 7 and Citra as the hops used in this bright little hazer). The beer has a juicy nose with tropical, floral, and citrus aromatics. The flavour is initially fruity and flowery, with considerable pineapple and orange juice sweetness. This gives way to a somewhat thin, modestly bitter finish.

Shadow Chaser is a decent hazy IPA. It’s not quite as enjoyable as some of Indie’s other IPA offerings that I’ve tried like Love Triangle or their classic Instigator IPA, but it’s not bad at all. I’d definitely like the beer to have been stronger and I’d have liked the finish to be more assertive. As an NEIPA, I found Shadow Chaser to be better than many, but not quite elite. I’d buy it again, but I’m not in a huge rush.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Voodoo HazeMama New England IPA

I had a marvelous beer mail delivery from the friendly team at Great Lakes Brewery. Included were eight cans of Octopus Wants To Fight (for which I have a newfound appreciation), eight of the excellent Meanwhile ... Down in Moxee, and eight of the only one that was new to me, Voodoo HazeMama New England IPA.

Voodoo HazeMama (dumb name IMHO) is a 7% ale sold in 473mL cans that have a sticker that declares “may contain strawberry”.  The crazy hazy beer has a rosy gold hue and pours with a fluff of off-white head. The beer has a juicy, slightly bitter nose with notes of orange, peach, and (maybe I was influenced by the sticker on the can) strawberry. The flavour continues the fruit cocktail vibe, with lots of sweetness up front, a tinge of bitterness at the back end, and a pretty creamy mouthfeel throughout.

Compared to some of the other beautiful IPA efforts from the crew at GLB, Voodoo HazeMama is a second tier effort. It has great strength and a beautiful, hazy look. It’s too sweet and it lacks the crackling back end that puts the IPA in NEIPAs.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.