Great Lakes Canuck Pale

Name: Canuck Pale Ale
Style: Pale ale
ABV: 5.2%
Serving: 650ml bottle
Brewery: Great Lakes Brewery
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Weblink: Great Lakes beer

Well now, this is more like it. A good big bottle, shared with Pyropette, nice and cold on a muggy, hot summer day. Ok, so the bottle has a touque and a pair of skis on it, so perhaps I'm a bit behind the season, but it seems to sit just as well at 25°C as -25°C. Anyways up, to the beer!

The beer pour (or was poured for me, if I'm honest!) a good, rich copper-amber colour, with a thick head of fine, off-white bubbles sitting atop. The aromas are a pleasantly subtle hoppy, floral bouquet, with a warm hint of white sugar and grapefruit lingering behind. In the mouth the flavours are dominated by strong, toasted caramel, orange and spun sugar. This slowly fades back to reveal the aromatic hop notes (with a more herbal character than was evident on the nose) riding on top of a backbone of mixed metaphors and wholemeal bread toast malt. Toward the back of the mouth the flavours dry up nicely, leaving just a yeasty-toasty-hoppy flavour and, again, that white sugar quality.

Much much more to my taste than the Stone IPA. While the Stone beat you over the head with its hop-and-nothing-else approach, this beer balances the powerful hop bitterness with a very well-judged caramel and malt structure. This surprise me somewhat, as recently I haven't had a good run of luck with Great Lakes beers. Anyway, if I can get hold of this one again in the future, I'll definitely buy a couple.

Flying Monkeys Hoptical Illusion

Name: Hoptical Illusion Almost Pale Ale
Style: Pale ale
ABV: 5.0%
Serving: 355ml bottle
Brewery: Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery
Location: Barrie, ON, Canada
Weblink: Coming soon... apparently.

So... normal service resumes after my patriotic digression (stands, hums GSTQ, salutes smartly, suppresses belch) and it's back to Ontario we go. A fairly new offering from a fairly new brewery. The Flying Monkeys outfit was formerly known as the rather more sober Robert Simpson Brewery, only changing name a couple of years ago. They are pioneering a range of experimental and very tasty beers, this one being possibly their best know. So, let's hop to it.

Hoptical Illusion pours a beautiful golden amber colour, as you'd expect from the full name it is a bit darker than your average pale ale, almost into proper amber territory. The head is a fizzy amalgam of large bubbles, but this subsides fairly quickly to the default ale light slick of fine froth. The aroma of the beer is solidly hoppy, with the distinctive medicinal resinous floral citrus mix that you'd expect from something with a name like this. There is something else there as well, but I can't quite hold on to it. Every time I get close it slips away again... I'll let you know if I ever track it down. In the mouth the first hit you get is of a refreshing lemonyness with a side order of gentle malty toffee. Then through come the flowers, and that resinous scent as well. A hint of black pine in the sun, with cool mountain air blowing through the boughs. Finally, as the beer slips past your tonsils, the hop notes slide sideways into a malty, yeasty rush that diffuses up into your nose.

Somewhere soon on here (I hope) you'll get a review of Beau's new I.P.Eh? beer. That one is a hop monster, and I think the name of this beer might lull people into thinking you'd be in for more of the same. However, that's all part of the illusion. If all you could do was smell the beer then you might be expecting a mouth puckering IPA, but what you end up with is a very nicely balanced, drinkable ale. Well done Monkeys, I hope they are paying you enough peanuts.