Where I talk about the beers that I am currently drinking tonight and attempt to review them. The kind of fun bit is that I’m actually drinking the beer as I’m reviewing it.
BLACK CREEK PALE ALE – Black Creek Historical Brewery (Toronto, Canada) – 5% ABV
I’ve actually been looking forward to this one since I got the news earlier this month that Black Creek’s Pale Ale was hitting the shelves of my local LCBO store. The brewery, based out of Black Creek Pioneer Village and using brewing techniques from the 1860s, has been marked on my “local breweries to watch out for” list ever since a rather cute guy named Mathieu raved about it as I was looking at the bottle of their Porter for the first time. Being one to take personal recommendations from random cute men seriously, I picked it up and have enjoyed it ever since. In fact, you may recall that I mentioned it in the second Gateway Beers post. It’s light, but has a wonderful flavour to it.
But the Pale Ale…this promised to be something of another colour. Seriously. TOTALLY different colour. Oh hell, you know what I mean. Let’s give it a try.
COLOUR – Beautiful orange. Almost exactly like looking in to a jar of orange blossom honey.
AROMA – Citrus and malt. You can smell a hint of hops. They all combine to give it a pretty sweet smell.
TASTE – Funnily enough, the initial taste hits me in the same order the aroma does. The citrus starts off which leads to a sharp hit of the sweet and lovely malt and then BAM, the hops is there and it’s all wrapped up with a nice, smoky taste. Apparently this brew was hopped four times, and damn, does it show. Make no bones about it, this is a sippin’ on the porch or in my case, on the couch listening to Charles Mingus beer. This is a taste you want to savour and get lost in to.
VERDICT – I’ll be picking more of this up. It’s definitely a sunny day beer and with the 5% alcohol content, you can drink this for quite a while without having to worry about falling down. And you know, Im quite happy with the luck I’ve been getting with hoppy beers with citrus tones to it. I’m attracting these things, I swear.
I haven’t come up with a rating system yet, but I feel like I have to come up with something for this. 4 out of 5 stars. Definitely a Toronto beer (and a brewery) worth watching out for.
SIDE NOTE – Charles Mingus really does go well with this drink.
