Cranky Reviews

Another Night at the Opera

Another Night at the Opera

125 Gravenhurst Opera House

Sawdust City Brewing Co.

5% Alcohol

I’m not what one would call an opera aficionado, don’t know much about the genre at all, although I’m sure our egghead Editor will have an opinion on the subject. As far as I know Carmen and Madame Butterfly met the Barber of Seville at Figaro’s wedding. What I do know about the opera I learned from the Marx Brothers, and of course the Grand Ole Opry, where they play both kinds of music, country and western. *

Hey Gravenhurst Opera House, tanks for the memories.

But when it comes to Gravenhurst, it’s a relative newcomer, Sawdust City, paying tribute to an iconic landmark, the Gravenhurst Opera House, on their 125^th anniversary. ** In the ultimate show of respect, the tribute is an amber, and as we all know I loves me an Amber. Time to see if I’ll be singing this brew’s virtues, or if the curtain closes on an Aida ending. *

A barkeep pro pour that she could stand behind, literally. The aroma is caramel light, fresh and a welcome respite from my last review, the full-frontal malt assault of a recent Belgian Tripel. The first taste is a just right caramel sweet body with a flat ever so mild hoppy bitter finish that’s so slight it’s smooth. It definitely seemed big swiggable, and so I did, and it is. The caramel combines with the hops for a slight coppery taste which makes for a nice combo.

It’s a lager but it has just a touch of bitterness like an amber ale. Whatever it is it’s very good. Because I sing like a frog, not a bird, I’ll keep my aria of appreciation to the written page. Well done SC and congratulations to the Gravenhurst Opera house for their first 125 years.

*Editor’s Comment: Fine culture for our Reviewer is the specks of green on his bread and cheese. Carmen is an 1875 French opera by Bizet. Madame Butterfly is a Puccini opera with a Japan locale, first performed in 1904 at La Scala. The original Barber of Seville (or The Useless Precaution) was not the Bugs Bunny sketch but a Rossini opera which debuted in 1816. The Marriage of Figaro is a classic Mozart opera composed in 1786. The Marx Brother’s A Night at the Opera is a 1935 comedy and more our Reviewer’s style. The actual opera they attended in the movie, and disrupted, was Verdi’s Il Trovatore. Verdi’s Aida (1871) is a classic tragedy set in ancient Egypt, with the two young lover’s dying in each other arms, suffocating in a sealed tomb as they sing their final farewells. I wonder which of these classic operas will be playing at The Gravenhurst Opera House this evening?

*Reviewer’s Comment: Actually tonight’s “classic” performance at The Gravenhurst Opera House is Vancouver based Roman Danylo’s 2011 creation “Comic Strippers”, a tragic tale of four male strippers who look funny rather than sexy with their shirts off.

**Editor’s Comment: Sawdust City began brewing in 2011 and opened the doors to their Gravenhurst centered brewery in 2014.

Final Rating: Singing a Super Suds Soliloquy of 16 out of 20

Other Info

IBU 25

Cranky Reviews

Another Night at the Opera

Ambers

Draft

Lager

15 to 20

Another Night at the Opera

Ambers

Draft

Lager

15 to 20

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Old enough to know, but not to know better?