Little Creatures Pale Ale

Little Creatures Brewery

I received an awesome book for my birthday a few months back called 1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die. if you haven't figured out by the fact that I have a blog dedicated to this wonderful elixir and that my last three vacations have centered around brewery tours and brew pubs, I love beer. that being said, of the 1001 beers in the book, I've sadly only just drank past the century mark. I felt like a beer novice after discovering this measly number, until I read that one of the book's contributors, who has been a beverage journalist for 20 years, has only tried 250-300 beers of the book's 1001. my mission over the next few months is to stick to the book and get drink off some of my beer bucket list.

one such beer on the bucket list is the Pale Ale from Australian brewer Little Creatures. I have previously passed up this beer in the aisles of Brewery Creek for two reasons. first, BC only sells it by the single bottle and charges $4 a pop. secondly, it's Australian. I know that Ozzies are great drinkers, but with only Foster's and VB to form my outright opinion of an entire nations beer existence, I just figured that Australians were great at drinking crappy beer. like with most things that I form an unreasonable opinion over, I was wrong.

the pungent floral hops of the LC Pale Ale hit your nose right when the cap is cracked. light citrus aroma comes along with those floral notes. she poured an amber/honey colour with a decent amount of a foamy head. I tasted some fruit at first and then the hops cut through that sweetness and settled into my mouth. although lingering, the hops are toned down a lot in this Pale Ale allowing some of the sweet tastes to mingle. after being in Portland and being subjected to some over the top Pales and IPAs using traditional west cost hops (Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, etc), it was nice to have a beer using these same hop strains to a much mellower effect. as the beer warmed up, the fruit came out a little bit more. this is my ideal summer beer - lots of flavour, a nice bitter bite, and one that you will make you skip to and from your fridge a few times over the course of a night.

B+ 355 ml bottle, 5.2%

Mardi Gras & Micro Brews - Tipplin' in Vermont!

when planning my trip to visit Tippler Ellie in Ottawa, we decided on doing an American beer tour as Ottawa is a relatively short drive to both New York and Vermont. a quick Google search led us to the obvious conclusion of going to either Burlington, Vermont or Lake Placid, NY. seemingly, these towns are both hotbeds of craft beer in that neck of the woods. since my trip was spawned from a need to get out of Vancouver during the Olympics, I didn't want to go to another Olympic town - so, Burlington it was. initially, we were going to try to tour some of Burlington's breweries and then do some sampling, but soon after arriving, a couple of Burlingtonians informed us that we had arrived during Mardi Gras weekend and that we should get ready to give'r.

although we didn't end up doing any tours of breweries, we tried to sample a lot of different beer - mainly ones from Vermont. it seemed as if every restaurant/pub that we went to had a minimum of a dozen beer on tap and many had cask conditioned offerings. our first stop was for burgers and beer at the Scuffer Steak and Ale House which boasts 15 taps and 50 different bottles. we tried a few Vermont brews including the citrus hopped Wolavers IPA and the floral hopped and sweetly malted Long Trail Pale Ale, but the standout here was from neighbouring NY - Brooklyn Brewing's Cookie Jar Porter. with an initial sweet, vanilla aroma, this porter had lots of deep dark chocolate tastes and a creamy body. I guess with all that sweetness, it shouldn't have been a surprise to find out that it was rocking a 8% ABV punch, but I would have never known if I hadn't read the menu. before heading to one of our preplanned beer destinations, we went to some townie bars and loaded up on $2 Rolling Rocks. this light 'extra' pale ale is one of my guilty drinking pleasures when I travel stateside. they're very easy drinking and sometimes that's the name of the game. after being refused a round of Jagerbombs at the townie bar (due to the bar's potential legal ramifications from people chipping their teeth), we headed towards the Vermont Pub & Brewery.

we had tried to get into the VPB earlier in the evening, but there was a 45 minutes line up and our beer thirst couldn't handle that length of time being unsatisfied. we got there later in the evening to have a couple before last call. VPB makes all there own draughts, which at the time, had an arsenal of 10 with 3 more being cask conditioned and ready to be pulled. they did 3oz sampler bats here, so I went with their Dogbit Bitter, Citra Pale Ale, Bombay Grab IPA, and the Vermont Smoked Porter. although they were all great, 2 of the samples really stood out. I could tell you that VPB smoke their own malts over apple, maple and hickory wood chips to recreate this 7th century style robust porter, which is how the menu describes this superb porter, but it was late and I was drunk so my tasting notes just read, "this Porter tastes of campfire and beef jerky!" sadly, that's really my best description of it's taste. the other standout beer was the Citra Pale Ale. golden in colour, very citrusy in aroma, this pale ale had a beautiful citrus bitterness that overwhelmed and then faded quickly. the short lasting bitterness, made this 60 IBU beer a lot more drinkable than a lot of it's highly hopped counterparts. so much so, I ordered another pint. I didn't realize this until now, but the Citra PA is very similar to a Yaletown IPA that is being poured at the Alibi room right now (more on that one in a few posts time).

the next day we sampled a couple of different beer at Magic Hat's tasting room, but soon realized that everyone was getting ready to head into town to take part in the Mardi Gras parade. after filling up on brekkie, we decided to follow suit. a few walkie poppies later and we were on Church Street ready to see some floats and catch some beads. it was loads of fun, but my beer critiquing cap had gone back to the haberdashery from where it came from. in fact, I think (and by 'I think', I mean 'I know') that I ended up at an afternoon dance club, listening to Lady Gaga with a bear couple that Ellie met and drinking (not enjoying) a Bud Lite with lime. hey - don't judge me! they were $2 and I'm half Scottish. to salvage some respect, that I have obviously lost in your eyes, I can tell you that the day ended with a pint of Farmhouse Ale at the American Flatbread Tap Room. this 10% ABV Belgian-style ale wasn't the wisest choice to end a long day drinking session with. I literally went with the first choice on their extensive list of 11 house brewed zero gravity beer, 8 'guest' taps (3 of which were cask pulls), and 80+ bottles. rereading the menu now, I'm really kicking myself for not having the stamina at the time to pay more attention to it. the menu easily has 20 beer that are on my bucket list. I guess that was my punishment for drinking a Bud Lite with Lime.

Riptide Pale Ale

Lighthouse Brewing Co.

Uh...wait.

Okay, I got it:

I have only vague memories of the television show "Riptide", but...

No. Forget it. I can do better than that:

*

Actually, I think I'll just copy out my tasting notes, and we can all stop pretending:

Ugly labelling. Very ugly.
Lively carbonation.
Light coppery hue.
Mild smell. Malty. Hint of honey?
Nice hop/malt balance. No sign of alcohol/yeast. Malt is pretty plain. Hops come up a bit at the end.
Okay. Nothing very subtle, nothing special. Pretty mild and palatable for all.
Better cold.
Easy to drink.
Not my favourite local micro, but still beats anything by the major breweries.
Won't offend anyone (unless they look at the label).


C

He'Brew Re'View

Shmaltz Brewing Company

my volunteer duties for this year's Vancouver International Film Festival led me to the Fraser Valley this weekend. while making a stop in Abbotsford (a/k/a Biblevania), I decided to check out the selection of beer at one of their liquor stores. to my extreme surprise, amongst the ho-hum offerings were 6-packs of New York's He'Brew Genesis Ale. not to my surprise, these 6-packs were covered in dust - this may be "the chosen beer", but obviously not by Abbotsfordians.

the Genesis Ale pours a clear dark orange and brown colour. the bubbles are not very lively and produce little head. for the head that is there, it dissipates quickly. the aroma is very bready (in this case, I'll go with bagely). there is something sour in the mix that pleasingly reminds me of a Belgian double or triple. the pleasant bageliness is backed up in the taste (although a little thin) but is quickly erased by the heaviness of the hops. the hops really coat your tongue with bitterness for a spell, but as more sips go down, the less the hops stay out to play. the shtick of the beer's name and packaging give this one some bonus points, but ultimately this is a highly drinkable beer that lacks a good malt to hop balance.

B

St – Ambroise Pale Ale

McAuslan Brewing Inc.

The Quebec brewery’s flagship beer, this pale ale is clean and easy to drink, with a strong hop character.

It pours amber-red, with a healthy head and plenty of carbonation. It smells a little of honey and hops.

The malt is nice, but not very strong. This means that the finish is very hoppy. For me, the balance is a little off on this beer and I would prefer it with a stronger malt character to play off the hops. Having said this, there is nothing wrong with a hop-heavy ale, and this beer is really quite enjoyable.

It would be a good “session beer”, as they say. It is very drinkable and, let’s face it, sometimes drinkability is exactly what you want.

B