Saturday, December 7, 2013

Brasseurs du temps: L'Allumante

You gotta love the explosion of craft breweries and brewpubs in Canada's capital region and Brassuers du temps was one of the first (and in my mind one of the best) in the area. They usually have a dozen or so beers on tap at the brewpub in old Hull, a rotating selection of the 25+ beers they make (their website lists 27) so you will always get the chance to try something new.  With so many different beers available I had to choose something to review (a difficult task) so I decided to go with the allumante, a really interesting and complex nut brown ale. 

For a nut brown ale, it is quite fruity, I instantly noted a banana and hazelnut flavour when I took my first sip.  Maybe that was because the person sitting next to me was drinking their banana flavoured beer and the smell wafted over, but it caught me off guard.  In terms of texture it is pretty malty, but it is really smooth and the hazelnut and fruit notes really come out during the course of the sip.   It does have a bit of a watery middle to it, but that is not enough to negatively impact the overall impression of the beer, but it finishes with a nice hoppy/bitter kick to it, a reminder that it is not a traditional brown.  I was a bit worried that they would fall into the trap of making the beer too sweet, as a lot of commercial brown ales are, but they really kept the sweetness to a minimum.   It is more of a hybrid between an English brown ale and a Belgian brune, and they really pull it off nicely.  Creativity is something BDT do really well and this is a great creation of theirs.

It's available on draught and in bottles at their brewpub and retail store in the old Hull part of Gatineau.  For those who like hockey it is a 10 minute walk from the Robert-Guertin Arena, the home of the Gatineau Olympiques so you can go to BDT for your pre-game beers. 

Rating: 4.5 Steins

What you need to know

Brewpub and retail store
170 rue Montcalm,
Gatineau, QC
J8X 2M2

Website
http://www.brasseursdutemps.com/

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/LesBrasseursDuTemps

Twitter
@BrasseursDT
@BrasseursDT_eng


Monday, December 2, 2013

Turtle Island Brewing: Wild Harvest ESB

These are exciting times for beer fans.  There seem to be new breweries popping up all of the time, some of them successful, some of them less so, but all of them enthusiastic about the sudsy arts and because the general consensus is that most mass produced lagers are shit, we get some wonderfully creative brews and new interpretations on old styles.  Turtle Island are a new brewery from here in Ottawa that have tried a few different styles so when this Wild Harvest ESB turned up at my local pub I had to give it a try.

I love a good bitter, it is my favourite beer style and an ESB is the bitterest and strongest version of the bitter style.  Wild Harvest pours quite cloudy and muddy coloured, I was a bit taken aback at how cloudy brown it looks.  Someone not used to this type of beer may be turned off by the cloudiness (it looks like there is a lot of sediment in it, but there isn't) but colour is only a small aspect of beer, so if you are worried by the colour then close your eyes and drink!  It starts off quite a bit smoother than I was expecting, closer to a regular bitter as opposed to an ESB, before progressing to a disapointing watery phase, but then seemingly out of nowhere you get sideswiped by a bitter finish.  This bitter finish has some fruity notes that really improve the overall impression of the beer but the entry leaves you wanting for more.  It has great potential but I got the feeling that this wasn't quite finished yet.  I can definitely see the potential but it just isn't quite there yet in my opinion.

It's available on draught at a handful of different places throughout Ottawa, but as Wild Harvest is a seasonal you never know where it will turn up.   There is a list of pubs and restaurants on their website. 

Rating: 3 Steins

What you need to know
At last I heard they were brewing out of Broadhead's facilities in south Ottawa.
Mailing address:
294 Badgeley Avenue
Kanata, ON K2T 0A7

Website:
http://www.turtleislandbrewing.com/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/turtleislandbeer

Twitter:
@TurtleBrewCo