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
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