Beer # 175 Bog Water Eastern Ontario Gruit
Beau's All Natural Brewery
Van Kleek Hill, Ontario, Canada
Independent
Gruit 6.6 % ABV Brown Glass Bottle 600 ml.
$4.35 (Canadian) At the LCBO
Twitter: @Beausallnatural
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| Sweet Gale |
Getting a couple of days behind here (sorry!) but I am catching up today. Had to get all of my Christmas shopping done. Now, I have time for the beer. Back on track here we have another offering from Beau's All Natural Brewery. Another gruit, this time flavoured with locally sourced organic sweet
gale (also know as Bog Myrtle or Myrica Gale). Bog myrtle is a lovely accompaniment to the malt in beer giving an herbal citrus kick.
I am Gruit...
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| Groo-it not Groot |
For those of you just tuning in gruit (actually pronounced groo-it, not groot. Even though that would be cooler) is an archaic beer style that sprung up in areas where hops were not available. These days Gruits are a craft classification that encompasses beers that do not rely on hops for bittering or flavouring.
Enough witty banter... onto the Groot... I mean Gruit...
Pours a slightly hazy amber honey colour, with a generous off-tan head made up small bubbles. The nose is very herbal, floral, and sweet. First sip is heady with botanicals. The gale is bright green and slightly lemony. A little tart some green tea notes. Effervescent, with mild medicinal hops at the end. Aeration brings out the sweet gale, lemon and herbs .
Impressions: Fail, So-so, Pass, Exceptional
Cost: 5/6 PASS
Colour: 5/6 PASS
Beer Style: 5/6 PASS
Re-Order: 4/6 PASS
Experience: 5/6 PASS
Christmas Spirit 5/6 PASS
Final Thoughts:
Certainly one of the more tame beers from Beau's, but still a good quality brew. Nice herbal flavour development and good overall character. Maybe a good beer to start the night out with working up to stronger beers later on in the night (someone always has to be first!)
Cheers And Beery Christmas
CJT
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Nordic Pale Ale
Beau's All Natural Brewing Company
Collaboration with Anders Kissmeyer and B-side Label
Vankleek Hill, Ontario, Canada
Independent
Flavoured APA 5.0 % ABV Brown Class Bottle 750 ml
$4.85 (Canadian) At LCBO
Twitter: @Beausallnatural
Tonight's beer is an interesting Collaboration from Anders Kissmeyer and The good folks at Beau's All Natural. Anders is Described on the Beau's website as a "One man gypsy beer company" he previously worked with Nørrebro Bryghus, the innovative brewhouse in Copenhagen, Denmark. I have Tasted three of their beers here,
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| Yarrow |
here, and here (The last one was my favourite). Prior to being a driving force in that brewery, Anders worked for Carlsberg as the quality control officer. He flew around the world ensuring that carlsberg beer in Uganda tasted like Carlsberg beer in Mexico. On a trip to the States he met Brooklyn Brewing Company's rock star brewmaster Garret Oliver and had his eyes opened to American style craft beer. He left Carlsberg to persue his dreams and ten years later it seems he still had more dreaming to do and has left Nørrebro Bryghus, to open Kissmeyer Beer. His Facebook page is here (mostly in Danish).
Tonight's beer has a lot of components... and I mean a lot. There are three different grain malts, 3 herbal additives and hops, maple syrup, rosehips, AND cranberries. Sweet Gale yarrow and heather make up the herbals. So this is going to be a complex beer, which is par for the course with Anders, as his beers from Nørrebro Bryghus were quite complex as well. So I look forward to trying this.
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| Sweet Gale |
Enough already... onto the tasting.
Dusty gold in colour with a slight cloudiness to it. The fluffy white head is made up of medium sized bubbles. The aroma is herbal hops, citrus, and spicy. Notes of Dusty Miller (the flower), hay, and yarrow. Slight muskiness, earthy, weedy. Effervescent sweet and tart, Yarrow is prominent, followed by the sweetness of oats and the heady malty taste of dark rye bread. Light citrus and such a tiny hint of cranberries and ginger. As it warms you get the sweetness of rosehips and and a fruity, spicy finish. Aeration gives us a woodsy, outdoors, field at the edge of the woods smell, very vegetative and sweet. Finish is not unlike a bitter aperitif wine, cleansing, and refreshing.
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:
When I first read the ingredients list for this beer I was taken aback. Barley, rye, and oat malts, hops, wild sweet gale, maple syrup, cranberries, rosehips, yarrow, and heather flowers, all organic of course. It seemed to me to be an impossible task to make all of these ingredients work together. Regular readers will recognise some of these ingredients as we have discussed medieval beers before, namely Gruits, which is what I thought this beer was aiming for. However it was plain to see that they had merged a gruit style into an APA, and it actually worked. Pick this one up while it still is in stores.
CJT
Follow me on Twitter: @pintjockey
Beer # 175 Bog Water Eastern Ontario Gruit
