Brewery: Mcauslan Brewing Co
Origin: Montreal Quebec Canada
Style: Oatmeal Stout
Abv: 5.0%
IBU: 45
SRM: Unknown
Hops: Cascade, Willamette, Golding
Yeast: Yorkshire
Recommended Serving temp: 5-12°C
Additional Brewing Info: Open tank fermentation.
Tis the season for stouts! This is a throw back but a good one. I buy this beer every year around this time. I'd say that its become an annual tradition to review it between the months of November and January. Funny enough, this time around it tasted a little different then I remembered it. I'm not sure if my taste has changed, if its my memory or if they tweaked the recipe? I found it more sour/tart this time.
Marketing: The can has a classic design stye with a black, white and Grey color scheme and a shield style brand logo as its main image. Its an okay design but it looks like a can that would house a stout beer, so its effective at a minimum.
Color: The beer poured as black as ink with a rich mocha colored head on top. It had a very rich and appetizing appearance in my opinion.
Nose: A deep rich aroma of roasted malt and a pleasant mild smokiness. Notes of coffee and chocolate and cocoa were there as well.
Taste: The taste was mildly sweet to almost dry, with a nice punch of sour malt flavors. The finish was quick and only mildly bitter. The beer was more sour than anything but not over powering. I got some cocoa flavors and chocolate and coffee. I over poured the beer when refilling the glass, as you can see. It was a small glass...
Texture: Mild carbonation with a weighty, velvety texture underneath.
Impression: I love this beer and always buy it around this time of year when it hits the shelves. Its a great Stout overall. It tasted more sour or tart then I remember it to be and a little less smokey. It was still very good though.
I review the beers I drink as I'm drinking them, but you can get a sense at how long it can take me to post about them by the photo above. I drank that beer back when I was reading "Say Nothing," which I had finished and wrote about in my life update post over two weeks ago.
Anyway, on to the next beer!
Brewery: Avling Brewery Inc
Origin: Toronto ON Canada
Style: German Style Pilsner
Abv: 4.9%
IBU: Unknown
SRM: Unknown
Marketing: Baby blue can with a photorealistic Blue Jay image. There is a lot of information about the beer on the back of the can and a little about the brewery itself.
Its not a bad design for a can but the bird image seems a bit random to me for a beer. I'm guessing that the Blue Jay is a connection between the city of Toronto and the baseball team - The Toronto Blue Jay's?
If thats not the case then I have no idea what the connection is and regardless, it seems very random to me.
Color: The beer poured a pale yellow with an airy head of white foam on top that maintained itself for quite a while.
Nose: The aroma of the beer was very grain forward with notes of cereals and a hint of lemon.
Taste: The taste matched the smell and tasted very grainy to me, but in a good way. It was crisp, somewhat dry, a little tart, and had a mild bitterness in the finish. It tasted well balanced. It also tasted quite fresh, even despite the fact that its been sitting in my fridge since early October.
Texture: Bubbly and airy and overall a pretty standard mouthfeel for a pilsner. Light bodied.
Impression: Overall I liked the beer for its crisp and grainy taste. It wasn't anything special though and I'll probably forget about it immediately. But it was enjoyable to drink in the moment nonetheless. No complaints by any means.
Here's just a photo of another beer I drank a while back. I reviewed it maybe this summer and drank another one a few weeks ago, so I won't bother reviewing it again. This is just proof I drank a beer I suppose.
