Boreale Noire

Boreale Noire is Les Brasseurs du Nord's stout in their beer line. This Quebec brewery tries to hit all the beer colour categories, they also have a Blanche, Blonde and a Rousse.

Noire is a very solid stout. They didn't try to go gimmicky here; this isn't a milk stout or a chocolate stout. There are some coffee hints, but they're pretty subtle. I think this would stand up well in a side by side comparison to Guinesss, which is something I'd like to try in the future.

After trying a number of unique and gimmicky beers recently, I really enjoyed just having a straight-forward quality beer. I'm giving this six out of seven thumbs up.

Hitachino Nest, Real Ginger Brew

Hitachino Nest Real Ginger Brew from the Kiuchi Brewery is a Japanese beer brewed with fresh ginger root. I'm generally a fan of non alcoholic ginger beer, so when I saw this beer I had to try it.

The first sip was a little bit skunky, but that died down pretty quickly. The ginger flavor isn't as strong as most non alcoholic ginger beers, but it's definitely noticeable. I don't think I like the mix of ginger and malt flavours, it's kind of like someone just added ginger to a mediocre beer. I starting to suspect that what I really want in an alcoholic ginger beer is a normal strong non alcoholic ginger beer with vodka added. Sort of like Mike's hard lemonade. Just because ginger beer has "beer" in the name, doesn't mean it tastes good when mixed with real beer. Sort of like Mike's hard lemonade in the states where they can't use vodka for legal reasons and it's a bad "malt beverage" instead".

The beer isn't offensive, I just think the added ginger detracts rather than adds to the overall experience. Two thumbs up out of seven.

Hanssens Artisanaal Oude Gueuze

"Why would they sell this? It must be a joke" - Anonymous first taster

Why are you making me review this?

The guy at the boutique beer shop warned me that lambics are not for the faint of heart, and it took him a few years to appreciate them. He offered that there are some modern variants that add sugar in order to make it more palatable, but that wasn't very authentic. With some prompting, he chose the Hanssens Artisanaal Oude Gueze as a reasonably approachable, but unsweetened, introduction to the style.

A 'Gueuze' is actually two lambics: an old lambic blended and re-fermented with a younger lambic. And what makes a lambic? Mostly the difference is that instead of carefully chosen yeasts, the brew is exposed to the air, and collects whatever yeasts and bacteria happen to drift by. So take two soups of rotting malt and barley, and blend them to perfection. Yum! Connoisseurs describe the beer as sour and 'barnyard-y'...and those are the people who like it.
  

Hanssens Artisanaal Oude Gueuze
Price: About $9.00 USD for a 1 pint bottle.

6% Alcohol/Vol.

Drinking impression: The sour smell hits you as soon as you remove the cork. I give my house guest credit for at least taking a sip, but after his quote above, he put it down and wouldn't touch it again. The taste has the aspects of a citrus, but without the lemony flavour. If you took a sour, unsweetened grapefruit juice and poured it into a light lager, you'd be going in the right direction. Despite how awful that might sound, it actually works. I found the first drink disconcerting, but shortly found myself going back for sip after sip. My tongue got a little thick from what I assume is the acidity, but I really enjoyed drinking this.

Would you buy it again? Yup. Plus I'm now motivated to find more lambics and see how they compare.

Would you drink two in a row? Actually yes, which is not what I expected. I think you'd want to be careful not to dump too much acid in your stomach in one go.

Best time and place to drink it: Hard to say exactly. This beer is screaming out to be paired with a meal, but I'm not sure exactly what. Perhaps a trout dish served over rice. The citrus notes should go well with the fish, and the rice would help pad your tummy a bit. 

Out of ten: As a beer wonk looking for new flavours? An eight. But a warning: don't serve this to the timid.

Charbonniere

Dieu du Ciel!'s Charbonniere is a smoked malt beer from Quebec. The smokiness is very pronounced in both the nose and the taste, reminiscent of a peaty scotch. Under the smoke it's a pretty standard ale, this beer is really all about the smoke.

This beer feels like it needs a good food pairing, maybe a good smoked Gouda. The interwebs say smoked beer goes well with Chinese food, which is definitely worth trying. This beer isn't meant to be refreshing sit on the porch beer, it's really all about the smokey novelty. You're probabaly not going to drink more than one in a sitting. That being said, it does the smoke really well. I could see I high end restaurant using this as pairing to some unique haut cuisine.

It's not a beer you're going to want every day, but if you want a smoked beer, this is a very good choice. Five and half thumbs up out of seven.

Boatswain H.L.V.

Ales can be intimidating at the best of times. When they come with a name like "Heavy Lift Vessel", you can be sure that you're in for a mighty pour. The good folks at Rhinelander aren't messing around with this limited edition brew, available from Trader Joe's.

Boatswain HLV
Price: $2.50 USD for 650mL

7% Alcohol/Vol.

Rhinelander Brewing Company is from Wisconsin, and has an interesting history of boom, bust, fires, and rebirth. Oddly, they no longer actually brew out of Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Liars!

Drinking impression: Heavy, even by ale standards. Bitter, but appropriately so, with faint coffee tones.

Would you buy it again? No. A decent brew, and a great price, but I'm not often in the mood for something this mighty.

Would you drink two in a row? No, I lack sufficient testosterone to even attempt that.

Best time and place to drink it: Toasting yet another collapse of the Maple Leafs, and the announcement that Ron Wilson is the scape goat this time around. Perhaps I'll send him a bottle.

Out of ten: A six. If you're into big ales, give it a try, but it's not for me. Best just to leave the room and find something else before someone can take your picture.

Griffon - Ale Rousse

Griffon is a red ale from the Brasserie McAuslan in Montreal. I used to be a big fan of red ales, particularly Rickards Red back before it went mainstream and changed the formulation. Lately I've been disappointed when trying reds, I'm still trying to figure out if my tastes have changed or I'm just picking poor beers.

Griffon is a bit of a watery ale on first blush, but with a sort of dry aftertaste. Sort of like a dry red wine. I think this dryness is the nuttiness that is mentioned on the label, but if it is nuttiness then it's not something I'd call a positive trait.

The beer did mellow a bit after sitting for five or ten minutes, and my overall impression improved a little. This improvement after sitting for a bit is something I've noticed recently with beers and something I'll probably track in future posts.

On first blush I was going to give this three thumbs up, but after letting it mellow I'm going to upgrade that to four thumbs up out of seven.

Trader Joe's 2011 Vintage Ale

We're on a weekend road trip to Cleveland and taking the opportunity to try some brews not available in Ontario. First up to bat is a Trader Joe's store brand made by Unibroue. Trader Joe's is fairly upscale so I went in with fairly high expectations.

This is a dark spiced ale, and appears to be trying for the winter ale niche. It's a smooth ale with no bitterness. The beer has a strong fennel overtone, almost a medicinal quality. I once has a Sam Adams winter ale that I really enjoyed, but other than that I've mostly been disappointed by winter ales. I'm just not very fond of the spice combinations they tend to choose, and this beer is no exception. It has all the characteristic of a good ale, dark color, full bodied, it's just the spices I don't enjoy. Three out of seven thumbs up, and this will probably be the last winter ale I try until at least November.