St-Ambroise Abricot

Name: St-Ambroise Apricot Wheat Ale
Style: Fruit wheat ale
ABV: 5.0%
Serving: 341ml bottle
Brewery: McAuslan Brewing Inc.
Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
Weblink: St-Ambroise Apricot

Well why didn't I write about this one before? It isn't as though I can claim that it is a new beer to me. I have known about this one for about two years now, pretty much since my first tentative trips over the border. Anyway, it's summer, so time to break a few more open!

The beer pours an appropriately apricotty orange colour, deep and rich, with a thin head of fine white bubbles that disappears fairly fast. The aromas released are dominated by thick, syrupy apricot and floral scents, oozing slowly and oilily (is that a word, who cares...). The same flavours hit your tongue very very hard when you first take a sip, and for an instant you expect the beer to be super sweet, almost anticipating a sugary fruit juice. However, this is not to be! The apricot scents are maintained throughout, but are wrapped in an intensely dry hoppy cloak. These are all backed by a tellingly wheaten, cerealy (a day for hitting the y-key often, it seems) flavour that carries the apricot rolling along toward the back of your mouth. The aftertaste lingers for a while, dominated by the more sour tang of the apricot's flesh next to the stone.

What impresses me most about this beer, each and every time I have a glass, is just how well integrated the flavours are. This isn't a beer that has just had apricot thrown in at the last minute, the fruit is an integral part of the beer's complex palette. It is a beautiful, soft, inviting beer, that you simply can't have just one of. Served cold on a hot day, I can't think of anything better.

Heritage Blackcurrant Rye

Name: Blackcurrant Rye
Style: Dark lager with fruit
ABV: 4.5%
Serving: 650ml bottle
Brewery: Heritage Brewing Limited
Location: Ottawa, ON, Canada
Weblink: Heritage Brewing seasonal beer

Yet another of the winter leftovers, but this time we're bringin' it on home! Pyropette and myself bought a couple of bottles of this directly from the brewery right here in Ottawa. Well, it is only a bus ride from work and a bus ride from home. We've had a few glasses of their regular Premium Lager and, on tap, it is very pleasant. Their dark lager however... well, not so keen. A bit sour and with a very odd set of overly subdued flavours. Perhaps I'll review that at some point in the future, but let's stick with the blackcurrant for now, brewed in November using local blackcurrants.

The beer pours very thin, and even with a fair amount of abuse produces no head to speak of, just a few fine bubbles at the periphery. The beer has almost no effervescence, just a slight pétillance at the edges of the tongue. This is a common failing of Heritage's bottled beers, I find, and might be related to the softness of Ottawa's water supply. The nose is quite sour, with a slightly unpleasant sulphurous and burnt toast hint. However, underlying this is a solidly dense blackcurranty fruityness. The first sips follow the same pattern, with most initial taste dominated by the sour rye malts, slightly over-toasted I feel, with blackcurrant only coming through very late. Gradually, as you drink through a glassful, however, these sour grain flavours disappear and all you are left with is a slightly tart but very richly blackcurranty and refreshing beer. There is still some lingering sour mash flavour, but it doesn't detract too much. The aftertaste, unfortunately, reverts to the slightly vegetal sour scents, with a hint of toasted grains. All in, when it was fresh this beer was a pleasant, if unimpressive, fruity dark lager. It is let down by the sour notes which don't help it, and it hasn't aged gracefully over the last five months. This suggests that it should be drunk young, but it feels like it would be a much better summer beer. However, I suppose when you are brewing with fresh local ingredients you have to take them when they are in season.