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.

Trader Joe's 2011 Vintage Ale

Drinking beer while traveling in the US used to be a very meager adventure. Dominated by the big bland mega brewers, you were often stuck drinking weak yellow liquid that spawned naughty jokes about adult behaviour in canoes. Lately things are much improved, with microbrews available most everywhere.

Trader Joe's Vintage Ale

Price: $4.99 USD for 750mL

9% Alcohol/Vol.

Trader Joe's hardly qualifies as a microbrew, but this beer clearly reflects their desire to provide a premium product for customers seeking novel flavours. In fact, this is actually brewed by Unibroue, a brewer rapidly becoming the preferred provider to this blog. Produced annually in limited quantities, each vintage is said to have a unique personality. 

Drinking impression: Thick, dark and showing some complexity. Starts by reminding me of a trappist ale, though the finish is both slightly weak and a little bitter, lacking the fullness of a better brew.

Would you buy it again? Nah. Fun once, but not good enough to seek out again. 

Would you drink two in a row? No, and in fact 750mL of this needs to be shared. 

Best time and place to drink it: Drowning your sorrows after losing your second game in a row, forcing your team to curl at 8:30am on a Saturday.

Out of ten: A four. Thicker than it needs to be, even for a bottle conditioned ale, and a disappointing aftertaste. 

Beau's - Lug Tread Lagered Ale

If you're going to endorse a golf product, you need Tiger Woods. Tennis? Better find Federer or Nadal. Beer? You need Norm Peterson from Cheers. Next best thing? How about an unpaid endorsement from George Wendt, the actor who played Norm.

That's hard to beat.

Lug Tread Lagered Ale

Price: $15.85 for 4 x 600mL at the LCBO

5.2% Alcohol/Vol.

A lagered ale? Yup:
1) Make an ale
2) Lager it
3) Profit!

Drinking impression: Full bodied and crisp without being heavy, very flavourful, just the right amount of carbonation and a gentle aftertaste. If Plato had to identify Beer, it might just be this one.

Would you buy it again? Absolutely. This is a beer I'd like to keep in stock as part of my regular rotation.

Would you drink two in a row? Probably, but at 600mL, one is often enough.

Best time and place to drink it: Sunday afternoon watching a classic Cheers marathon.

Out of ten: A nine. Remarkable for being so general purpose, this is close to what a definitive Beer should be. If you have any friends who think Blue is what a beer should be, pour them a Lug Tread and educate the poor fools.

Trafalgar India Ink Black Pale Ale

I like hoppy, bitter beers, so I'm always on the lookout for good India Pale Ales.  And yet this whole time I'd never heard of the seemingly contradictory Black IPAs.  They appear to be more common from west-coast breweries, but $4.75 at the LCBO will get you a bottle of India Ink Black Pale Ale (650 mL, 5.0% abv) from Oakville's Trafalgar brewery (another nice bottle design, incidentally)

This is essentially a normal pale ale with some dark malt thrown in for colour; the result is a beer that looks like a red porter, or perhaps (god forbid) a Kalimotxo.  Not much head on it, but what there is sticks around -- it's been an hour since I poured mine and there's still a little bit floating on top.  The aroma has the usually nut and caramel scents of a darker beer; I don't get any of the citrus notes that some other reviews have mentioned.

The taste is where it gets interesting, but not for the reasons you'd think.  At first this beer tasted like a particularly hoppy porter; but then, if I closed my eyes, blocked out the image of drinking a dark beer, and had another sip, it was more like a regular IPA.  Eyes open, porter.  Eyes closed, IPA.  It got to the point where I could flip back and forth on each sip just by thinking about it.  The actual taste was the same, but the experience was notably different, like a synaesthetic version of this picture.

We're skirting the edge of the epistemic void here.  If the experience of drinking a beer changes depending on how you think about it, what does that imply for any kind of objective review?  Maybe it's best not to worry about it, since either way I still liked it.  And isn't that what this project is really about?

La Messagere Red Ale

Took a quick road trip to Montreal for the long weekend and picked up a variety of Quebec microbrews from Paradis de la Biere, an unassuming depanneur with a really impressive local beer selection.

Today's brew is La Messagere Red Ale from the Nouvelle-France brewery. This is a gluten-free ale made from rice and buckwheat.

The beer is quite a full bodied as I'd normally expect from an ale. There's definitely flavor there, but just a little too watery for my taste (the website calls it "delicate"). I think the predominant flavor is coming from the rice, unfortunately I don't know the right flavor word to describe it (the website describes it as "woody", but that's not the word that I would choose).

Not a beer I'd seek out again, but not offensive or overly boring, just not too exciting. If you're looking for a gluten free beer then this is worth trying. Three and half thumbs up out of seven.

Rogue Dead Guy Ale

This weekend I was buying some wine at the local LCBO when I saw some Rogue Dead Guy Ale (6.6% abv) sitting on the checkout counter.  I asked if they were reserved for someone and was told no, they had just been brought over from the flagship store on Rideau.  I've had a few beers from Rogue brewery and they've all been worthwhile, so I accepted my fate and shelved the beer I'd originally bought this week in favour of a six-pack of Dead Guy.

Rogue has some of the better bottle designs out there, and this one is no exception.  Here's a link to a close-up, since the lens on my camera won't let me get closer than three feet.  The boney fellow is apparently related to the skeletons associated with the Day of the Dead (a festival which also provided the aesthetic for one of my favourite computer games ever).  I don't know why he's wearing a beehive hat; perhaps it gets cold in the afterlife.  At least he's got that pint to keep him warm.

Once poured, the beer is a rich orangey-copper colour, nicely translucent without actually being cloudy.  The taste is quite malty, balanced by a good dose of bitterness from the hops.  I'm not sure what the nose is; the closest thing I can think of is freshly made sugar candy, laid out just before it becomes caramel.  Overall a very good beer.  The one downside is cost: at $16.95 for six bottles it's not something I'd buy every time.  But as an occasional kiss of fate?  I'm willing to pay the price.

Guinness Irish Stout

Guinness is probably the most famous beer in the world. Even Afghanistan has an Irish pub. So to make this post somewhat unique I decided to review a rare type of Guinness; one I poured myself.

The Maple Leaf lounge at the Toronto airport had complimentary Guinness on tap. They even have a little info card with helpful directions on how to pour the perfect pint.

Aside from the novelty factor from getting to pour my own pint (which was a definite plus), how was it?

A very smooth beer with just a hint of bitterness. The pour is really key. The foam brushes the top of your mouth with every sip creating a very pleasant light robust texture that adds to the overall experience. It's not an overly complex beer flavor-wise, but that's probably one of the trade offs you make when you create a global brand.


I give it five out of seven thumbs up, with a shout out to Air Canada for letting me pour it myself.

Sam Adams Utopias

Let's face it, the main reason to write a beer blog is to find an excuse to drink crazy beers. Some beers are crazy concepts, some are in crazy locations, some have crazy prices. This is the last category.


Sam Adams Utopias

Price: $114.95 for 710mL

25.5% Alcohol/Vol.

Despite being exceedingly expensive, this beer is actually quite hard to buy. They only shipped a small number to Ontario, so the LCBO sold it over the phone, and it was sold out in about 15 minutes. Fortunately, I was one of the fools who got through.

This beer is best thought of as something like a scotch, something to sip, not chug. Consider:

We aged a portion of the beer in hand-selected, single-use bourbon casks from the award-winning Buffalo Trace Distillery. The latest batch also spent time in Portuguese muscatel finishing casks, as well as sherry, brandy and Cognac casks.

I don't know what a Portuguese muscatel is, but I'm eager to try the beer.

Drinking impression: Unlike any other drink I've ever tried. No real comparison to a beer or scotch. The mouthfeel is vaguely thick, but not syrupy. The taste is complex, and goes through multiple layers. There are chocolate flavours, and some hints of a port or sherry. This isn't a drink I find myself craving, but I really enjoyed the experience.

Would you buy it again? For myself? No. For someone else who would really appreciate the gift? Absolutely. Any real beer nut would love to try this. It's not that it is fantastic, rather that it is so unique.

Would you drink two in a row? Seems like a waste. There are no bubbles, so this beer can be recapped and saved to savour again later.

Best time and place to drink it: With 8-10 good friends at the start of a sophisticated stag party.

Out of ten: A ten. This is something you should go out of your way to try. The price isn't as bad as it looks: for a 2oz drink, which is the right amount, it'll cost you $10, or the cost of two domestic bottles at a bar. Get some friends together and make it happen.

Russian Gun Imperial Stout

Russian Gun Imperial Stout is brewed by the Grand River Brewing company. Grand River Brewing is housed in the old Galt Knife Company building on the Grand River in Cambridge. This is a fairly new brewery that I've had high hopes for, but their beers have been somewhat hit or miss.

My particular bottle has a label saying it was bottled on Dec 20, 2011, definitely a feature I'm a fan of. The stout is a nice black colour, it's stoutness is obvious on first glance. The overwhelming flavor is a somewhat unpleasant burnt/smokiness that is somewhat off putting. There are some more interesting undertones, but the overtones really dominate.

I'm usually a fan of stouts, so I was excited at having one brewed so close to home, but this stout was a disappointment. This is a seasonal beer from Grand River Brewing, so I'll try it again next winter in the hopes that they tweak the recipe a little bit.

I give this beer 3 out 7 thumbs up.

Samuel Adams Alpine Spring

It's been a long day.  Up at 6:30am in Maryland, four hour meeting, drive to Philadelphia, fly back, go straight to a three hour class, then home.  Very tiring.  But in the middle of all this I had half an hour to spare in PHL and managed to find a bar.

This bar was surprisingly well-stocked for an airport watering hole.  I scanned the shelves for a minute and found at least half a dozen new beers to try.  Being in Pennsylvania, a case could have been made for Yuengling, but in honour of the unseasonably warm weather -- 18C when I landed last night! -- I chose a Samuel Adams Alpine Spring (5.5% abv; not available at the LCBO).  This is a a new one from Sam Adams, available for three months only as a seasonal beer (a traditional Boston spring being January through March, it seems).

The label claimed that "noble Tettnang hops, grown in the foothills of the alps, give the brew a bright citrus and floral aroma and flavor [sic]".  And it's true, there was a lot of citrus, to the point where it almost tasted like there was a lemon peel in the beer.  If that's done with hops only I'm impressed.  The floral notes also came through, although I'm not sure I'd describe them that way.  It was that same scent that's common to Belgian ales -- it was a surprise to find it in a lager, but a nice one.  Lots of fresh hops complemented both these tastes.

Overall it's a good, tasty beer.  It seems like a while since I've been able to say that (the last beer I tried left me struggling with the epistemic void -- see an upcoming post).  It's too bad you can't buy it around here; looks like there are a few LCBOs in town that have the regular Sam Adams lager though, which I definitely need to get again.

Quilmes Cristal

Order a beer in Argentina without specifying the type, and you're bound to end up with a big 1L bottle of Quilmes Cristal. This is the Budweiser of beers down here. Even the advertising campaigns remind me of the big bland American brew.

Price: AR$18.00 for 970mL (About $4 CAD/USD)

4.9% Alcohol/Vol.

Drinking impression: Surprisingly decent for a mass market brew. Similar to a Molson Canadian, but with a little more body, and a little less finish. Nothing glorious, but quite serviceable.

Would you buy it again? Yes, though largely because there really isn't a lot of variety in beers down here. There are only 4 major brands, and almost no microbrews.

Would you drink two in a row? The temperature has averaged 35C down here for two weeks....you bet I'll drink two in a row.

Best time and place to drink it: When you've walked around a Buenos Aires market for two hours, and your shirt is getting sticky.

Out of ten: A four.