Cranky Reviews

American Canuck?

Pale Ale

Beer Type

15 to 20

15 to 20

Super Suds

Rating

American Canuck?

Canuck Pale Ale

Great Lakes Brewery

5.2% Alcohol

My old buddy JT reviewed this one a while ago, but I had one in the fridge standing tall and it looked like the right beer for the Sunday Night Football game and an armchair tailgate party of one.

Very much an American Pale Ale style, despite the Canuck* moniker. Even the lumberjack image on the front could be seen as American. I would guess that quite possibly the most well known lumberjack is an American named Paul Bunyan.  Maybe they should have had a Mountie on the can with a breathalyzer? The only thing Canadian about this beer is the self-deprecating explanation on the can that summarizes with an apology, ”Sorry”. Apologizing is as Canadian as Tim Hortons and the Maple Leafs.

A golden pour, a slightly darker gold than a lot of pale ales. Slim white head, fruit in the aroma, the hops are doing their job but only just. This pale ale is very much an American style, with the zing, the fruitiness and the bitter all there but downplayed. Refreshing but not the extreme thirst quencher some IPAs tend to be. A session style version of the traditional IPA. Everything understated, maybe that is reason enough to brand it Canadian.

I enjoyed this beer mainly because it had great balance. A little zing, a little hoppy, a little bitter all combining for an easy drinking and refreshing pale ale. Sorry, but that’s how I feel about it.

*Editor’s Comment: According to the new edition of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, even the term Canuck is not Canadian. The true origin of “Canuck” lies not in Europe, nor in Canada itself, but in Hawaii. Apparently, it originates from the Hawaiian word for a person, “kanaka”. East of the Great Lakes, “Canuck” shed its Hawaiian past, acquired a new spelling, and began to mean a Canadian, particularly one who spoke French. As the decades passed, a Canuck became simply a Canadian.

Final Rating: An Identity Crises 15 out of 20

Pale Ale

Beer Type

15 to 20

15 to 20

Super Suds

Rating

Other Info

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