Farmer Steve’s boys wetted the net to haul in a few fat bass-terds that day.
Last summer Farmer Steve and his two young fellas came to the cottage to lob a line in the lake and have a brew or two too. Those bronzebacks were biting and breakin’ water and the boys hauled in a few of those fat bass-terds. For me it’s my favourite freshwater fighting fish and an opportunity for an alliteration as well, maybe two. EK calls them weed hogs and prefers a pickerel himself, but he’s all about the eatin’, whereas I’m a catch and releaser. Northerns are like hauling in a log, and ugly pikes are just too damn big. *
I was at the lake the other day, the spring melt is a bit of an overachiever this year. The water is about 1 ½ feet above the dock No worries, I’ll pull a Noah and wait for the flood waters to subside before I cast away. ** All this talk about fishing is making me thirsty and is in fact a segue not a digression. Our brew du jour is a Bronzeback Ale from Bayside.
We have quaffed our fair share of dark lagers and then some, but we’ve only sampled a few dark ales to date. The good news is that they all secured super suds status. Time to enter the bronze age and see if this Bayside brew can keep the dark ale super suds streak alive.
A dark, as in boot black, pour with a wispy white fleck of froth. It has a strong toffee sweet aroma. It smells thick and chewy but first taste yields just the opposite a light watery mouthfeel. A light scotch style ale caramel sweet slightly nutty to a very mild ale bitter finish and aftertaste. You don’t really notice the 6 % at all, it’s light and smooth and easy drinking. The big swig test exhibited, not surprisingly, the same flavour and balance. The bitters subsided a bit and it evolved into a smooth flat finish. A nice variation on a scotch ale or an amber.
0 Comments