Allegheny Splash Tangerine Peach Float

Named in honour of baseballs hit into the river in Pittsburgh, Allegheny Splash Tangerine Peach Float is a 5% ale from the team at Left Field Brewery in Toronto. The beer comes in 355mL cans with a cute li’l drawing on the side. It’s brewed with peach and tangerine (I assume a purée) and lactose, along with wheat and oats. A.S. has a dull orange colour and pours with a thin layer of off-white head.

The Splash has a fruity aroma that has the sweetness of peach and the tang of yogurt. The flavour is a bit tart and it encompasses tangerine and peach notes, as well as a deft touch of vanilla sweetness.

This was a pretty quirky and enjoyable little brew—juicy and with big yogurt energy. I liked it quite a bit more than I expected to.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Lemon Raspberry Wizard of Gose

 When eating gelato, my firm belief is that the top flavour combo is lemon and raspberry. It’s tart, fruity, refreshing, and perfect. So, when I saw that Bandit Brewery had a version of Wizard of Gose with lemon and raspberry, I was pretty jazzed. The 4.2% sour beer from Toronto comes in 355mL cans that feature a formal raccoon with red/yellow heterochromia.

This edition of WofG has a rose gold colour. It’s a hazy brew that pours with a sprinkling of white head. The beer has a briny aroma with a nice lemony note. The flavour is tart, with lots of lemon and a little tickle of raspberry.

If I’m being honest, I’d have liked this beer to have a bit more emphasis on raspberry, but that said, the flavour is nice and it definitely doesn’t taste artificial. Not a bad little gose.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Havana Affair

 Havana Affair (great name!) is a 5% rum punch sour from the folks at Rainhard Brewing in Toronto. The 355mL can lists a veritable fruit salad: cherry, lime, mango, pineapple, and tangerine. The beer itself is bronze-orange, with a fluffy off-white head that dissipated quickly.

HA has a tangy, fruit zip right off the nose, with lime and cherry leading the way. The flavour is a medley of fruit elements with a zing of quite respectable sourness. No bitterness here, just sweet and sour.

Rating: 7.5 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.

Bear Worship B.A. Golden Sour

Born in Toronto, Bear Worship B.A. Golden Sour (5?) is a hefty sour ale from the team at Blood Brothers Brewing. It’s a 9% barrel aged sour sold in 500mL bottles with gorgeous ursine labels.

Bear Worship is a cloudy orange grog that decants with a thin layer of white suds. It boasts a tangy aroma with tangerine and peach elements. The beer is certainly sour, but it is backed by some sweetness from the barrel aging process to give it a pleasing balance and, by some alchemy, to also mask the 9% alcohol content to a devilish degree. The key flavour is sour fruitiness, but it sidles into faintly woody territory by the finish. There is next to no bitterness on display.

A boozy brute from BBB, Bear Worship is a tart and satisfying potion.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Tropic Like It’s Hot Pineapple Sour

 

A collab between Toronto’s People’s Pint Brewing Company and the Society of Beer Drinking Ladies, Tropic Like It’s Hot Pineapple Sour is a 4.9% brew sold in 500mL bottles. Fifty cents from the sale of bottles of Tropic go to the Glad Day Lit Emergency Fund. It’s a clear rosy gold ale with a layer of white suds. According to the PP website, this is a "Catharina sour", which I had to look up--according to a helpful article on https://byo.com/, I learned that it's a Brazilian-style kettle sour with fruit.

Tropic has a tart, fruity aroma. The flavour, as one might surmise, is fruity and has a pineapple tendency, though a bit more sour than you’d want your eatin’ pineapple to be. The beer has next to no bitterness and it finishes quite abruptly.

I enjoyed my bottle of Tropic, but I’d have liked it still more if the pineapple flavour were a bit more pronounced and the zealous sourness we’re dialed back just a touch. Still, the beer was extremely refreshing and it made a lovely companion on a warm July evening.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Gosé Cuervo Tequila Lime Sour with Salt

Brewed up in Toronto’s West End by the team at People’s Pint Brewing Company, Gosé Cuervo Tequila Lime Sour with Salt is basically a margarita in a 4.9% beer. Sold in 500mL bottles with pretty rad labels, Gosé is brewed with lime juice, lime zest, salt, and barrel aged Mexican reposado tequila.

 

 

This salty citrusy treat is hazy, with a pale golden hue. It pours with a thin layer of white suds and it has a tart and briny aroma—big citrus and considerably salinity. The beer really does have a margarita-esque flavour, packed with lime and a salty tang. There is a bit of tequila present, but honestly, for such a strong flavour, it is pretty understated.

More than a gimmick, Gosé Cuervo is a damned tasty sour and salty offering. Personally, I’d not be inclined to quaff a second one in a go, but the beer is undeniably interesting.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Solstice Double Dry Hopped Sour

At a respectable 5.5%, I found Solstice Double Dry Hopped Sour practically irresistible when putting together a mail order from Toronto’s Bandit Brewery, though the price tag for a single bottle, while not outrageous, convinced me that one was enough. Sold in 500mL bottles, Solstice proved to be a hazy pale straw ale with a fluffy white head.

Solstice has a tart aroma accented with lychee. The flavour, too, has some lychee elements, as well as some sour plum. Of the double dry hopping, I can’t say that I detected a whole lot, other than a floral surge at the back end.

In Solstice, I found a sour beer that was worthy of the name, but a DDH beer with questionable pedigree. I liked, but didn’t love it.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Hamilton Haul--Early Bird Oak-Aged Sour with Cherries

The label of 473mL cans of Early Bird Oak-Aged Sour with Cherries are lovely, with a bird carrying off a sprig of cherries. The 5.8%, 13 IBU sour is from Hamilton, Ontario’s Grain & Grit Small Batch Beer.

Early Bird has a sediment rich bright pink colour. It’s a hazy beer that poured with almost no head. The beer packs a lot into its aroma: cherry notes, tartness, and a woody warmth. The flavour is sour, cherry-focused, and features an oaky essence. The woodiness is potent, and also a little unusual—it provides an odd funk that I found enjoyable.

Good strength, ample sour, and a woodiness that I thought was strangely agreeable made this a pretty decent sour ale, but not one I’d reach for routinely.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Half Remembered Dream

The label that adorns the 750mL bottles of Half Remembered Dream indicates that the “blend of golden sour beers aged in oak barrels with rose hips and hibiscus” contained within “ages gracefully”. So I did something that I thought myself unable to do—I let the stuff age. Nothing ridiculous. I didn’t cellar it for five years or anything. But I let the beer, brewed and bottled in August 2018, sit until January 2020. Not nothing when you consider both my small living space and the volume of beer I consume.

Half Remembered Dream comes from Small Pony Barrel Works out of Kanata, Ontario. It’s a 5% barrel-aged sour with a rose gold colour, just a touch of sediment, a short-lived off-white head, and a pretty decent constellation of carbonation. It has a tart, nectarine and berry nose accented with a floral hint. The tartness and not-quite-ripe nectarine elements are evident in the flavour as well. Barrel-aged woodiness is present, but not dominant. There is almost no bitterness to speak of, but the beer’s inherent sourness balances out what might otherwise be a too sweet offering.

Never having tasted it fresh, I can’t say if letting Half Remembered Dream marinate for over a year was worthwhile. However, I’ll say I really enjoyed what turned up in my glass. I’d have liked the alcohol content to have been a bit higher, but the delicate, slightly floral elements were able to shine as a result.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Oro Blanco Grapefruit Sour

Shortly after American Thanksgiving, I was working through my yearly (ish) listening to Arlo Guthrie’s highly enjoyable anti-war anthem "Alice’s Restaurant Masacree" while I washed a sink of dishes. However, I only had about ten minutes’ worth of dishes and the Masacree clocks in at 18:37, so I had some time to spare on the back end. As a result, I decided to grab a 473mL can of Oro Blanco Grapefruit Sour and give it a go.

Oro Blanco is brewed in Victoria, B.C. by the Phillips Brewing Company. It’s a 4.2% alcohol beer made using wheat, malted barley, grapefruit, lime juice, and lactobacillus yeast. The resulting grog is a hazy, orange gold colour. It pours with a thin cover of white head and has a pungent, tart citrus whiff. As sour beers go, Oro Blanco isn’t assertively mouth-puckering. Rather, it’s tart in a fresh fruit sort of way, with lots of juicy notes to balance things out. The back end sees the sourness pick up steam, but it never ratchets up beyond tanginess.

The beer is refreshing, highly quaffable sour from a great brewery on Canada’s west coast. It’s sessionable on paper, though I can never really get behind the idea of drinking more than one sour ale in a go. In all, it delivers exactly what it promises, and in a pretty agreeable package. This is not a compelling, funky sour; rather, it’s a juicy, tart, and approachable ale.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Strawberry Rhubarb Kennel Sour

On a lovely sunny fall afternoon, I selected a 500mL bottle from Black Lab Brewing’s Kennel Sour Series—the Strawberry Rhubarb edition. Born in Toronto, the Strawberry Rhubarb Kennel Sour contains 4% alcohol. It has the pinkish colour of a ruby red grapefruit juice and pours with a very thin layer of white suds.

The Strawberry Rhubarb Kennel Sour has a tangy, tart nose, backed with a measure of dessert sweetness. The flavour debuts with considerable sourness, built around tart rhubarb notes. There is a bit of strawberry, too, though it is a secondary element.

A nice sour ale, Black Lab’s strawberry rhubarb effort has a ratio that is agreeable in a beer; however, if you served me a pie that skewed this heavily toward rhubarb tartness, I might be less than impressed. The beer has a thin mouthfeel, but a jolt of sourness helps to overcome it.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Combat Wombat

Every once in a while, Ontario’s liquor control authority will import an interesting American brew, but often the product seems to be old by the time it gets to me, the thirsty consumer. By way of example, I submit the adorably named Combat Wombat from Newport, Oregon’s Rogue Ales. Purchased by me in late August, the production date listed on the bottle is the Ides of March. Of course, if I weren’t such a hypocrite, I’d vote with my dollars and refuse to buy the sub-optimally fresh, six-month old sour IPA; however, the chance at a 650mL bottle of a novel 7.2%, 49 IBU ale brewed with lactose, wheat, oats, blood orange and grapefruit was too much to pass up on principle. Farts.

The beer, billed as a sour, Northeast-Style IPA, poured hazily, with a copper-orange cast and a thick bristle of suds that faded pretty quickly to an off-white tonsure. As well, there was a bit more sediment in the bottom of my glass than I’d have preferred. Huge sour and citrus elements characterize the aroma. Flavour-wise, there are notes of sour candy, tart grapefruit, and some juicy field berry notes. Bitterness, balanced against sweet and sour, made up the finish.

Despite the 7.2% weight, I found myself fairly guzzling this stuff—the lactose-enhanced mouthfeel and candy elements made me gulp thirstily. I really enjoyed the flavour, though it was at times a bit too candied. I’d have liked the assertive sourness of the aroma to carry through a bit more into taste. As well, a stronger carbonation game might have elevated my enjoyment to the next plateau (this might be attributable to the beer’s venerability; however, Ontarian scarcity of this particular brew may make that suspicion hard to confirm). All told, I’m glad I bought the stuff—I just wish I could have a crack at a fresher batch.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Fickle Mistress

A 5.5% dry hopped sour, Fickle Mistress is raised in St. Jacobs, Ontario by the folks at Block 3 Brewing Co. Fickle Mistress comes in 500mL bottles with old-timey two-tone labels. According to the info on the side, my beer was bottled on November 13, 2018.

With a clear champagne colour and a cap of white fuzz, Fickle Mistress cuts an elegant figure. It has a tart strawberry scent, backed by a funky yeast fragrance. The flavour is quite mild for a sour, with berry and grape notes sitting in the driver’s seat. Riding shotgun, there is a bit of wild yeast, but not “wild” wild. Of the dry-hopping, I didn’t find there to be a whole lot of evidence or bitterness.

I though Block 3’s Fickle Mistress was a fair effort. Compared to their Frankenstout or Through the Quad, which I really enjoyed, Fickle Mistress was a little underwhelming. I genuinely liked the berry elements, but I wanted a bunch more funk or some more zealous hopping to take this beer to the next level. Still, as someone who drinks a lot of Ontario craft beer, I think the B3’s bottle shop in wee St. Jacobs is one of the as-yet-unvisited Ontario beer destinations I’d most like to hit up.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

People’s Pint Pit-Stop: Serendipitous Sour

My third and final 12oz pour during my debut visit to People’s Pint in Toronto was their Serendipitous Sour, brewed with pineapple and mixed berries. The 5% beer showed up rose-hued and elegant in a stemmed chalice. It arrived with a fluffy white head, though it faded to a sudsy ring extremely quickly.

Serendipitous Sour had a wacky nose, rich in sweet fruit punch notes. Given the sweetness of the aroma, it was a pleasant surprise to find that Serendipitous Sour was actually. The flavour kicked off with sharp, unripened berry notes, before mellowing into a juicy pineapple finish.

Fruitier and less tart than many of its sour contemporaries, I found People’s Pint’s take to be quite engaging, in a juicy sort of way. Not as funky as I might have wanted, perhaps, but certainly agreeable.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Pineapple Uber Sour Beer

Pineapple Uber Sour Beer is a low alcohol, ultra low IBU effort that comes from Burlington, Ontario’s Nickel Brook Brewing Co. This berlinerweisse is flavoured with piña. It’s a 3.9% brew with just 3 IBUs that comes in 500mL bottles.

Pineapple Uber is a hazy, almost milky pale yellow brew that pours with a persistent inch of white suds. The beer has a tangy and stimulating nose built around a sour pineapple vibe. The flavour moves from sour to sweet, but lingers at the former, only getting near the latter at the absolute finish. 

For a beer so low in alcohol it’d be hard pressed to ever make me stagger, there really is a staggering amount of flavour in this little sour. If you like pineapple and you dig sour beers, this quirky little wheated brew has a lot to offer.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Western Suds: Hot Pink Lemonade Sour

Hot Pink Lemonade Sour is built in Vancouver by the Spectrum Brewing Company. It’s a 5% ale that comes in stylish 355mL pink cans. The beer within is a faintly hazy orange gold with a quickly dissipating white head.

HPLS has a sharp, citrus aroma. The flavour doesn’t quite rise to the occasion—it has some of the qualities that make pink lemonade such a summer classic (tangy lemon flavour and maximum refreshment), but it is also extremely thin. Nor is it quite as sour as I’d have liked.

Thirst quenching and agreeable but a bit watery, Hot Pink Lemonade Sour is good, but it could have been great.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Spin Dive Summer Gose

Spending a coupla days cat- and hog-sitting for my frère and his roomie, I picked myself up a few cans of cold after the sad supply I was left, including a 473mL number of Spin Dive Summer Gose. A light beer at just 3.8% alcohol and 11 IBUs, Spin Dive comes from Lake of Bays Brewing Company in Baysville, Ontario.

Hazy and golden, with just a whisper of thin, off-white head. It has a briny waft that promises a blend of tart and spice. The flavour is salty and tangy, with a nice lime element, but it is unexpectedly mild, and this mildness is born out by a disappointingly thin body. 

Spin Dive is a refreshing little fella with a nice flavour foundation, but it lacks body and depth. Insufficiently sharp for a gose, though, and a bit underwhelming in the main. 

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Hula Hoop Sour Rizbal Mango Lassi

Hula Hoop Sour Rizbal Mango Lassi comes from Parsons Brewing Company out of Ontario’s scenic Prince Edward County. Sold in 500mL bottles and clocking in at 4.8% alcohol, the beer is a somewhat milky orange-hued grog with a thin cap of white head.

But enough of preliminaries—let’s get down to the brew. Hula Hoop has a genuinely unique aroma. It’s faintly tart, but really luxuriates in mango purée elements. The flavour owes less to sweet mango than it does to funky yeast, but there is an island fruit undercurrent that lends a little global flair.

This beer does a pretty fair job of recreating the lively yogurt funk that comes from a mango lassi. However, it lacks the creaminess and sweetness that make lassis such a pleasant treat. Still, for a sour beer from Cottage Country, Ontario, this stuff has some cred.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Mash Up the Jam

Those clever beer wizards at Hamilton's Collective Arts Brewing have got to be among Ontario’s most industrious and creative brewers. They pump out, can, and sell more new beers than just about anyone in the province, and they manage to get a lot of them onto the shelves of the provincially-run liquor stores, which I understand is no mean feat. The latest offering comes in the form of Mash Up the Jam, a dry-hopped sour ale. At 5.2%, there is a bit of bop to this pop. It’s sold in artsy 473mL cans from which emerges a sunny dull-gold nectar. Mash Up pours with a thin layer of off-white head and it has a funkily tropical nose. Tart, but well restrained, the beer isn’t briny or overly sharp. Rather, it’s quite approachable, which isn’t always the norm in sour ales. It has notes of almost ripened fruit—particularly citrus and stone fruits. The beer is built around an abrupt and dry mouthfeel, which holds whatever sweetness the fruit elements might try to impart very much in check. There is some bitterness, located almost entirely at the back end, though not as prevalent as I’d hoped it would be.

Mash Up the Jam is a fine and funky ale from an innovative and prolific brewery. Not there best work, perhaps, but an agreeably tart concoction with a bit of verve. Possibly a good starting point for someone new to sour ales and interested in exploring one.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.