Stack Brewing Trademark Infringement Gose Second Anniversary Ale

Beer # 244 Trademark Infringement Anniversary Ale

Stack Brewing Company

Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
Independent Microbrewery
Gose 4.5% ABV Brown Glass Bottle 500ml
$6.00 (Canadian) At The Brewery
Twitter: @Stackbrewing


Another beer from the good people up at Stack Brewing in the Nickle City. This is a Gose they brewed for their second anniversary back in June. I may have sat on this beer for a bit... Glad I'm finally getting to it.

It's about time...drink me.



Pours a light cloudy gold with a thin head of made up of tiny bubbles. Aroma is sweet, wheaty, slightly caramel with hints of singed citrus. There is also a hint of mineral. First sip is slightly nutty with light grapefruit and lemon. Tart and mildly sour with a good backbone of minerals and salt. Aeration gives us some more malty, nutty, herbal notes.

Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 


Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 5/6 PASS
Re-Order:  5/6  PASS
Experience:  5/6 PASS

Final Thoughts:

Full disclosure, I have had this beer in my fridge for a couple of months, so it definitely has picked up some age. But the flavours are all still there. Lovely use of the salt in the beer. 
 
Cheers

CJT


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Sun Comes up it's Tuesday Morning

A Range of Samples from Sawdust City and Lake of Bays

Twitter @SawdustCityBeer @LB_brewing

I've been on the mend lately. An early spring cold has put me out of commision for quite some time. That and I have been working some ridiculous hours. So I decided to hop into the local and do a bit of an omnibus tasting, as they had a few new ones I had not tried. Enjoy these and expect some new tastings shortly

CJT

Beer # 229 Cheli's Pale Ale

Lake of Bays Brewing Company
Baysville, Ontario, Canada

Independent Microbrewery
Dry Hopped Barrel Aged Pale Ale
7.0 % ABV 20 oz Draft (592 ml.)
$6.00 (Canadian) At the brewery

This is the newest beer in the NHL Alumni Series and it is named for Chris Chelios the 20 plus year, right handed defenceman who played for six years with The Montreal Canadiens and almost a decade each with the Chicago Black Hawks and Detroit Red Wings. This is the first Time I have seen the Alumni Series in draft form and was curious... If I get a bottle of this I will repost it in a more detailed form.

Pours a lovely clear gold with an off-white head made up of small bubbles. Nose is sweet and slightly woody, notes of malt and vanilla caramel. First sip is very refreshing clear and crisp. Very fresh tasting oak sets in later almost saplike but no too sweet. Good profile of an English pale ale with tons of fresh fruit some apples and a nice drying and slightly bitter finish. All through the beer you get a hazy woodiness, that is like a forest on a fall day or the distant smoke of a maple sugar shack.

Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 

Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 6/6 EXCEPTIONAL
Re-Order:  5/6 PASS
Experience:  5/6 PASS

Final Thoughts: Very good beer, sadly only a perfunctory look, would love to get this in a bottle and slowly savour it.

Beer # 230 So it Gose

Sawdust City Brewing Company
Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada

Independent Microbrewery
Flavoured Gose
4.1 % ABV 20 oz Draft (592 ml.)
$6.50 (Canadian) At the brewery


This new offering by Sawdust is a lacto-bacillus soured wheat beer, with sea salt and coriander

Pours a hazy tinny gold, with a thin off-white head made up of tiny bubbles. Mildly sour on the nose with hints of wheat, and an almost sea like brininess. First sip gives us a tart brew with salt tones. The salt is evident, you taste it but it does not leave you thirsty. There are hints of citrus, coriander. The salt amps up your taste-buds and leaves you wanting more. There is a subtle fruitiness mixed in with the overall minerality of the salt. The strangest thing about the beer is the three main components the salt, the fruit-herb and the wheat all play exceedingly well with each other. one will surge ahead while the others wait their turn creating a flavour palate that is intriguing and ever-changing

Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 

Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 6/6 EXCEPTIONAL
Re-Order:  5/6 PASS
Experience:  6/6 EXCEPTIONAL

Final Thoughts: I was told this is the love it or hate it beer... I am obviously one of the former. This beer is an excellent example of Gose and how minerals can change the flavour of beer.The only other Gose I have blogged about was Beau's here and I can safely say this one is better. This is definitely not  some kid adding salt to his Canadian to make it taste less like skunk. This is a carefully crafted and balanced beer. Try it, you will be surprised.


Beer # 231 Original Jorden

Sawdust City Brewing Company
Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada

Independent Microbrewery
APA
5.0 % ABV 20 oz Draft (592 ml.)
$6.50 (Canadian) At the brewery

This one was brewed for the Griffin Gastropub in Bracebridge, Ontario.

Pours a cloudy green-yellow with an off-white head made of small bubbles. Very light grapefruit and passion fruit on the nose with hints of pine and some vegetation. First sip is very light and fruity with some underlying greenness. Some medicinal hops and pine. nice bitterness on the finish with plenty of grainy malt.

Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 

Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 5/6 PASS
Re-Order:  5/6 PASS
Experience:  5/6 PASS

Final Thoughts: Not the best APA I have ever had but a nice fruity patio sipper. 


Beer # 232 Balmoral's Outrage Rye Saison

Sawdust City Brewing Company
Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada

Independent Microbrewery
Barrel Aged Flavoured Rye APA Saison
5.0 % ABV 20 oz Draft (592 ml.)
$6.50 (Canadian) At the brewery

The most interesting brew of the day was definitely this one. Balmoral's Outrage. I can't offer any opinion on the name... but the beer? Whoa!

Pours a coppery gold with an off-white head made up of small bubbles. Nose is woody with lots of medicinal herbaceousness. The beer is slightly tart with some oak and smoke. There is leather and cedar followed by a dried fruit sweetness, some spices, like ginger clove and curry. There is a definite turmeric and coriander, cumin, Indian sweet masala going on. This beer was described as "Christmas Cake" to me, and the dried fruit and spicy sweetness does back that up, but I get a nice fruity curry from this, a gentle Northern Indian curry with raisins and potatoes. The beer is infused with Juniper and Angelica root, which should give it a more gin-like or even a Drambuie feel, but I lean more towards the food. I would be thrilled to drink this with a nice spicy curry, (or for that matter bake it into a Christmas Cake.)

Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 

Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 5/6 PASS
Re-Order:  6/6 EXCEPTIONAL
Experience:  6/6 EXCEPTIONAL

Final Thoughts: This beer is why the craft market is doing so well. It is not about Why?... it is about Why Not? This is a fantastically delicious beer that I am afraid not enough people will get to taste (or understand). Sometimes the ripest fruit is found far out on the limb...

Beer # 233 The Princess Wears Hotpants
  Sawdust City Brewing Company
Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada

Independent Microbrewery
Cask Conditioned 
5.0 % ABV 20 oz Draft (592 ml.)
$6.50 (Canadian) At the brewery

Flavoured with some citric acid and jalapenos this beer is designed to spice up your life.

pours a cloudy off-gold with very thin off-white head. First sip is light an fruity with a follow-up attack of hot jalapenos. tangy and zingy, with a nice fruity hit of capsicum.

Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 

Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 5/6 PASS
Re-Order:  5/6 PASS
Experience:  5/6 PASS

Final Thoughts: not my favourite incarnation of the princess, but I like the heat. A nice tasty brew good for summer sipping, or spicy food. try some if you can find it... it pops up erratically. 

Cheers 

CJT

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Beer # 101 Opa's Gose Wild Oats Series # 5

 Opa's Gose

Beau's All Natural Brewing Company

Van Kleek Hill, Ontario, Canada
Independent
Gose (Salted and Spiced Beer) 5.0 % ABV Brown Glass Bottle 600 ml.
$7.85 (Canadian) At LCBO 
Twitter: @beausallnatural 


Beau's is one of those hard working and quirky breweries. They are constantly innovating and pushing the boundaries, creating very interesting brews for special one offs for festivals and tap takeovers. So their stable of beers is almost impossible to keep track of with out a programme. Today's beer is from their "Wild Oats" series, and is a beer style... I've never heard of: Gose. This beer was invented in Leipzig Germany in the early 16th century. It is a salted and spiced beer which precludes it from being sanctioned under the Reinheitsgebot The German Beer Law of 1516 which states beer may only be made with water, barley, and hops. As well Gose is typified by the inclusion of 50% or more malted wheat. Gose was originally bottled in long necked green bottles that would form a "yeast plug" instead of a cork as the beer underwent a secondary fermentation in the bottle. The salt in the beer came from the water originally, and later was added to the beer. Also, the fermentation of the beer was spontaneous, in open vats like Lambics, but it was soon discovered how to use yeast to produce the same flavour.

Beau's is found in a small town which is geographically located at about the halfway point between Ottawa Ontario, and Montreal Quebec is a rich agricultural area of Eastern Ontario. Beau's was founded by father and son team of Tim and Steve Beauchesne on Canada Day (July 1st) 2006.

On with the Gose...

Cloudy Yellow gold in colour fluffy white head made up of medium sized bubbles. Very wheaty nose with hints of coriander  First sip is very thin and light. The coriander waits until the finish and the salt hits you in the end drying your tongue a bit and turning the mouthfeel mineral. There is a slight damp grain feel to it as well as some citrus. The taste of the wheat dominates but the malted barley is there hiding in the back. Aeration brings out the citrusy coriander but not much else.

At this point I added more sea salt as was indicated by the package.

Salt greatly improved the flavour. It is a very delicate balancing act of adding beer and adding salt to get the right mix (Fortunately it's a 600 ml bottle!) Salt turns the volume up on the muted notes of coriander and citrus. It also tones down the wet grain taste and rounds out the beer perfectly. Strangely it is not unlike drinking beer on the seaside. The sea salt coats the back of the palate and leaves a lingering ocean taste. Malt sugars show up as well leaving a salty-sweet sugary finish. Also... the salt increases the thirst and makes me want to drink more beer faster... a little bit of downside to it.


Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional 

Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: N/A First one I have had
Re-Order:  4/6 PASS
Experience:  4/6 PASS

Final Thoughts:

This was a new experience for me... I have never tasted a Gose before. And it isn't that I didn't enjoy the beer, but tasting it without food and water was a little difficult. Under the correct circumstances this would be a good food beer, perhaps I can try it again the next time I make schnitzel. Just keep in mind the salt increases your thirst, have water ready, and drink it with a friend.

Cheers

CJT


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