Archive for category Beer
Beer Review – Wells Bombardier Waggle Dance
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Beer Tasting, Photography, Travel on July 13, 2010
Name: Wells Bombardier Waggle Dance
Origin: England
Style: Ale (Honey Ale 5%)
Appearance: A nice gold colour, with a very small fizzy head that suffers from low retention.
Taste: There is some citrus aromas noted. The beer starts sweet with definite honey notes. It has other crisp, grassy flavours imparted most likely by its hops. Waggle Dance finishes with a sweet honey aftertaste that is very short lived.
Mouth Feel: A very soft, very refreshing beer. It has a light body and no sharpness what-so-ever.
Final Thoughts (4.0 out of 5): This is another superb beer from Wells Bombardier. If only we got more selection from this brewer in Canada. Sadly the bulk of what they make will never see our cold shores.
Beer Review – Innis and Gunn Canadian Cask Oak Aged Ale
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Beer Tasting, Hiking, Travel on July 12, 2010
Name: Innis and Gunn Canadian Cask Oak Aged Ale
Origin: Scotland (Barrels originate from Canada)
Style: Scottish Strong Ale (7.1%)
Appearance: The colour is a crystal clear ruby red, that pours with a nice, medium sized foamy head with excellent retention.
Taste: There are definite notes of raisins and apples in the aroma. The flavours are fruity, with raisins, apples and some subtler notes of molasses and whiskey.
Mouth Feel: A surprisingly light bodied beer for such a high ABV, this Scottish Ale has a refreshing palette overall. Its high ABV and Whiskey cask aging gives this beer a touch of fire.
Final Thoughts (4.0 out of 5): Absolutely fantastic! This beer was made especially for Canada Day by Innis and Gunn and though I am a week late on trying it, I am glad I did. I love Canadian whiskey and I love Innis and Gunns oak aged ales. This is a great combination of both.
Bottled Mystery Cider
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Experiments, Home Brewing on July 12, 2010
I completely forgot about this one. Its been sitting in its fermenter since the end of May and I finally got around to bottling over a month later. This is the very first (and possibly last) beverage I have created by simply dumping the mixture straight on top of the yeast cake of recently bottled beer. If this turns out to be a drinkable cider I may start doing this for all of my finished beers.
I primed it with about a 1/2 cup of demerara sugar and managed to squeeze about 20 pints and 10 bottles of this odd-ball cider out of it. The final gravity was 1.000, giving it in ABV of about 5% and a very low calorie count of about 160kcal a pint.
Next week I will pop one of this concoctions into the fridge and try it out.
Quickie Beer Review – Glutaner
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Beer Tasting, Rants on July 11, 2010
I need to get this one down quickly while its still fresh in my head. I have never had a Gluten-free beer before and after drinking this German-made disaster I will probably never drink one again.
Where to start… Well when I poured it the first thing I thought of was burning plastic in a fire pit. The flavours are far worse, tasting synthetic and bitter. If you have ever eaten the brocolli-like flower from a raw rapini plant, you may understand what this flavour is like. The mouth-feel seals the deal, being grainy, thick and very unpleasant.
Apparently I need to read the labels before buying a beer, because this ‘beer’ actually contains nothing beer about it. Its base is made from some kind of flower called Sorghum, which is apparently used in the production of alcoholic beverages.
How this beer passed the German Beer Purity Laws beats me. Odds are this is exclusively sold as an export because this would never be allowed on the shelf there.
Beer Review – What The Huck Huckleberry Wheat Ale
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Beer Tasting, Photography on July 11, 2010
Name: Fernie Brewing Company’s ‘What The Huck’ Huckle Berry Wheat Ale
Origin: Canada, BC
Style: Fruit Wheat Ale (5%)
Appearance: A foggy, orange and peach coloured ale. It poured with a nice, large head that had excellent retention.
Taste: The smells are of sour berries, most likely the huckleberry, some notes of nectarines. The initial impressions are a lot of different fruit-based flavours. Sour berries, nectarines are the most apparent. Some citrus notes as well. There is a slightly sweet, malty flavour, but it is very subtle. Aftertaste finishes sour and is short lived.
Mouth Feel: A very foamy, very filling ale. The body is light and despite its sour palette, this wheat ale is quite refreshing.
Final Thoughts (3.0 out of 5): A good ale overall. I enjoyed the use of sour fruits, rather than sweet fruits as it lent towards are more ‘beer-like’ flavour, rather then a fruity cocktail.
In the deep south of Alerta, along the Crowsnest Highway there are hundreds of Wind Power stations dotting the landscape.
Beer Review – Wells Bombardier Burning Gold
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Beer Tasting, Photography, Travel on July 9, 2010
Name: Wells Bombardier Burning Gold
Origin: England
Style: Ale (4.7%)
Appearance: A nice clear, gold coloured ale. There was not much head on the pour and it did not show much retention.
Taste: The aroma is slightly hoppy and with some hints of grasses. The taste starts sweet, with notes of caramel but quickly becomes bitter and citrusy. It finishes with a grapefruit like aftertaste that lingers.
Mouth Feel: Highly carbonated and filling with a medium body.
Final Thoughts (3.5 out of 5): A very good, very gorgeous looking ale.
Quickie Beer Reviews – Keystone Lager and Hitachino Nest XH
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Beer Tasting on July 2, 2010
A couple quick beer reviews that I need to expel from my brain before I forget what they were like.
Hitachino Next Extra High (XH) – Strong Ale (8%) - 3.5/5
For a beer at 8% ABV it does a good job of hiding the fact. A strong ale with sweet, malty characteristics, there is no real hint of its high ABV. Tasty and easy to drink, one bottle of this beer will Karate kick you in the face. This Hitachino Beer, like the last two I tried erupted with foam as soon as I popped the bottle cap, hinting of a long, shaky journey to Canada.
From the Land of the Rising Sun.
Keystone Lager – Cheap Lager (5%) – 3/5
This beer was shockingly good. Not shockingly good in the way of excellently crafted beer, but rather shockingly good because I excepted it to taste like awful and it did not. A light palette of standard lager flavours, this cheap branded beer is still quite enjoyable, with hardly any strong aftertaste. For only $17 for a 15 pack this may be my beer of choice on day where volume is more important than quality.