All Eyes on Yuzu Pale Ale

Brewed in Bracebridge, Ontario with flaked oats and yuzu purée, All Eyes on Yuzu Pale Ale is a quirky entry that originated from Muskoka Brewery’s Moonlight Kettle Series and has, as the 473mL can says, “graduated”.

The beer contains 5.3% alcohol. It pours orange-gold and hazy, with a fluffy eggshell head. The yuzu (a yellow or green citrus fruit hailing from Japan and Korea) gives the beer a citrusy nose, with lemon, grapefruit and lime elements. The flavour, too, has a citrus spine, though grapefruit-like notes are more pronounced that their lemon-lime cousins. The back end has some pale ale bitterness, though this is balanced with some biscuity sweetness.

An (for me, at least) unfamiliar citrus fruit used in brewing makes my heart go pitter pat, so All Eyes on Yuzu was already off to a good start. The result is a pretty mellow, enjoyable pale ale with an unusual flavour that tastes somewhere between grapefruit and cough drop (but in a mostly good way). A nice sunny day ale from a brewery that associates itself with dock drinking is a pretty good move, and this one was executed quite well. A bit more crispness would have really sealed the deal, though.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Yuzu Pale Ale

From Radical Road Brewing Co. in Toronto's Leslieville neighbourhood, Yuzu Pale Ale is brewed using yuzu fruit. According to Wikipedia, that fount of knowledge in the digital era, yuzu is a citrus fruit, similar in look to a small grapefruit, that is native to China and Tibet that is now more widely grown in Japan and Korea. The beer comes in 473mL cans and clocks in at an even 5.0%. It's a bright and hazy golden number that pours with a shock of white head.

To my ol' sniffer, Yuzu Pale Ale had a feisty scent that was bitter and heavy on lime notes. The flavour had less to do with lime and more to do with grapefruit and lemon. All told, a real citrus cornucopia. As well, it was fairly bitter, though not quite hops-heavy as I might have wished.

 

Yuzu Pale Ale gave me a real gift in that it was a genuinely new (to me at least) twist on the pale ale. I found it refreshing in every sense of the word. My complaints were minor and my zeal was genuine, though I must confess, it was a wee bit thin of mouthfeel. Still, it was a grand summer pale.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.