Wellington Arkell Best Bitter

It's been awhile...I'm back with another Canadian brew review.

Wellington Arkell Best Bitter

Wellington Brewery

Ontario, Canada

English Bitter

4.00%

Look: The beer poured A very rich, yet clear amber, brown color.  A nice off-white head stood up for A few minutes before deflating into nothingness, leaving behind A decent amount of lacing on the rim of my glass. Not much trace carbonation visible.  Not the best looking beer I should add.

Smell: Immediately I get A very roasty, nutty scent.  I could smell it as soon as I popped the can open.  Also pick up A bit of some honey biscuit and cereal grain. Perhaps A bit of some grapefruit from hops, maybe A little pine as well.  Besides the nuttiness everything else is fairly subdued.

Taste: Some light bready notes, watered down coffee, and A bit of caramel.  About half way through the taste you get A bit of bittering from the hops to balance the beer out quite well. Finishes with A brush of some roasted cereal and some piney/grapefruit hoppiness.


Mouthfeel:  Medium bodied. Perhaps A bit lighter than that.  Medium carbonation as well. Does not sting the tongue and goes down very easy.  Maybe it could be A little more full bodied but I think that the amount of flavor to mouthfeel ratio is really making this beer work.

Overall: This really isn't A great example of A bitter, yet it's also not A horrible one.  Maybe A bit higher than middle of the road when it comes to English Bitters.  I would suggest giving it A try though if you are ever in Ontario, maybe you will have A different experience than me.  

Wellington Arkell Best Bitter gets A 3.5/5 from me.

Elora Grand Lager

Continuing on my Canadian vacation from mid March, Elora Grand Lager.

Brewed by Trafalgar Brewing Company
Ontario, Canada
Pale Lager
5%

Purchased from an LCBO in Scarborough.

(I have no idea why Blogger is doing this to my photos...)

"Dry-Hopped" and "Craft Brewed" Oh really...? We'll have to see about that.

Look: The Elora Grand Lager pours A very bright, golden color. It looks sort of like light orange juice.  The head barely existent, forms about a quarter of an inch of just pure foam. This does not look very appetizing at all.

Smell: A bit of bathroom cleaner. Seriously. It smells like lemon pledge. Maybe A bit of corn, faintest trace of some barley malt as well. The smell was pretty hard to pick up because of the solvent hints it gives off.  I really hope the taste does not follow.

Taste: Ok, here we go. The first thing I notice right up front is A hoppy twang. Not so much A good, quality hoppy twang. Maybe A cheaper, hop oil twang. It really hits you on the tongue. It's pretty sour and A bit solvent...like I imagine lemon pledge would be. After you dig your way through that, you can finally pick up A bit of sweetness that flickers throughout the middle but then gets buried again by that lemon twang.  I guess it's not awful. It could be really refreshing if I just got done mowing a couple acres worth of grass with push mower and needed to drink something to quench my dying thirst. Meh...

Mouthfeel:  The mouthfeel is pretty slick. Not really drying at all. Carbonation is pretty moderate with this one.

Overall: It's not too bad. I don't think I would really ever buy it again. It was pretty cheap and at least it was drinkable. I'd rate it higher than most Macro brews too but for me, it just doesn't hit the spot.

Elora Grand Lager gets A 2/5.

Abita Christmas Ale

Consumed from the bottle into A Sam Adams special glass. Purchased for $2.50 at the House of 1000 Beers in New Kensington, PA.

The Abita page about the beer can be found HERE.

Abita Christmas Ale is A seasonal brew. (Winter)

An American Brown Ale coming in at 5.50%ABV.
Brewed by Abita Brewing Co.
Louisiana .

Look: Very nice orange/brown/ruby-amber color.  The beer poured A thick 2 finger tan, off-red head. Semi-cloudy/clear.  The beer wasn't murky but it also wasn't easy to see through either. Abita Christmas Ale left some decent lacing around the glass as I consumed it. 

Smell: From the start, I get pine.  It smelled as if I had walked into A store that sold nothing but Christmas trees.  The real ones...not the plastic ones. I also picked up some very faint, lightly toasted malt.  Maybe even some faint spices hiding in and around somewhere. A bit lacking and uninspiring. 

Taste: Well. The first sip was very disappointing. I picked up almost nothing.  Some pine from the hops and maybe some light nutmeg and biscuit...but not much of those even. Maybe the beer is too cold?  After letting it warm up for A good half an hour or more, I decided to give it another go. This time A bit more flavor showed up, but not too much. Picked up some more nuttiness that blended nicely with the pineyness from the hops. Some honey and toasted malt. A little baker's chocolate, and some spices that I was unable to identify because of how faint they tasted.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied. Low carbonation...Which I like in these kind of beers.  I don't need A lot of carbonation ruining the flavor by numbing my tongue. The beer was just A bit chewy. Definitely came across as creamy.  It was able to coat my tongue and mouth just A little bit.

Overall: I'm pretty disappointed with this Christmas Ale. Especially compared to other ones. It's A bit piney and A little spicy but it just falls short of what I had expected.  Maybe I was hoping for too much?

Abita Christmas Ale gets A 3.5/5 from me.

Not bad, not great, A little better than middle of the road. 

Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA

You can check out the web page for this brew HERE.

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA is an American Double/Imperial IPA.  Served in a 12oz bottle into a mug.  Comes in at 9% with 90 IBU.

"90 Minute IPA was our first continually-hopped beer, which is a method of hopping that allows for a pungent, but not crushing hop flavor. Since introducing the world to the continual-hopping method with our 90 Minute IPA, we've since released a continually-hopped 60 Minute IPA, 120 Minute IPA and even a 75 Minute IPA (a cask-conditioned blend of 60 & 90 Minute IPAs).: "

As you can see from the quote from the website...This brew is all about the hops. I guess there other 2 are as well but this is the one I picked up.  So how does it fare for this guy?  Time to find out.

Look: The beer poured a very dark, hazy, golden, amber color.  Very beautiful glow radiating through out the glass. For some reason I was only able to get about a half an inch of a fluffy, off white head.  Subtle carbonation bubbles up from the bottom of the glass.  Not as sprity as some other "IPA's" i've had in the past, but truthfully...I prefer it this way.   90 Minute IPA left some pretty decent lacing in my glass as I quenched my thirst.  

Smell: Some toasted malts right up front, in your nose.  A little bit of light caramel and a heaping load of toffee. I'm also picking up something a bit sweeter...perhaps some donuts? Yeah, donuts. Also wafting from the glass is a blast of some fresh, sliced grapefruit and some dry orange peel. No doubt from the hops.  The smell isn't as strong as I would expect from all the hop bragging, but we'll see when it comes to taste.

Taste/Feel: Very moderate body.  A little more watery than I had expected but it actually fits with the taste quite well.  It actually is a little sticky in the mouth.  It just doesn't slide down, it is sort of like you are drinking some goo that nickelodeon use to dump on people. What was that stuff called? Ahhh...I can't remember now for the life of me. Anyways. I picked up some hints of toasted malt that came across as some light caramel and toffee. Just as I picked up in the nose when testing the smell. Vanilla.  Yes, I am picking up some vanilla...not cheap, fake vanilla but real vanilla bean. 

Now on to the bitterness, which this beer, surprisingly doesn't overwhelm you with. I was really hoping for a more bitter beer but this one did not deliver as bitter of a bite as I could have hoped.  It seems like these IIPA beers are always letting me down when it comes to bitterness. Oh well...maybe it's just me? Perhaps I set my BU hopes to high? I dont know. The hop flavors I picked up were reminiscent of grapefruit, that is the prime flavor that sticks around for most of the end of the beer. A little bit of lemon rind sneaks in just to splash your tongue with a bit of lemony bitterness that drops off into a semi dry finish with almost no sign of alcohol to be found anywhere in this 9% beer.

Overall it's a pretty good showing for an IIPA.  After finishing this beer quite quickly I did end up with a bit of a buzz from the 9%.  Maybe it was because I hadn't eaten anything all day too. 

This is a pretty good beer and I would recommend it to anyone who is into IPA's and stronger beers. However it does come at a bit of a price.

I give Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA 3.8/5.  I just couldn't give it a 4 because the lack of bitterness let me down a bit.