Another edition of Glorious and Free, * this one from where it all started, Dominion City. This brouhaha of a brew that has a bucktooth boxing beaver donning the gloves is a cross Canada crafters collaboration celebrating our still and forever glorious and free country of Canada. All Canadian crafters with all Canadian ingredients to brew an all Canadian brew. Perhaps you can see a theme developing here.
Our Canada Day sampling was the Sawdust City version of this brew, a well balanced IPA, and although it wasn’t free it certainly was glorious. Time to see how this DC version stacks up.
The all Canadian ingredients for this IPA include Centennial, El Dorado and Chinook hops from L’Isle-aux-Allumettes, in Quebec just up the Ottawa River.**
This pour is a muted OJ hazy shade of an IPA with a bright white head saluting the flag. It’s not very aromatic, just a hint of Citrus tropical on the nose. First swig and this one is all about the bitters. Even Betty Botter would have said that’s bitter.*** But according to the COMDB Guide to Beer Tasting, and I quote “I have tried beer that was more bitter than the runner-up at a beauty pageant but after three or four swigs it started to taste OK.” The moral of the story, never judge a beer on the first swig. This one has old school bitters, but with lots of juice too, for a funky finish, but the bitter isn’t done yet. There’s a bitter aftertaste too. When it comes to the juice-bitters balance, the bitters is the fat kid on the see saw.
Nice middlin’ tropical citrus happening, but the bitters are a beast. I have nothing against bitters, in fact I enjoy them on occasion, but it took me a couple of swigs and then a few more to acclimatize myself to the heavy hitter bitters that are this brew. By about halfway through this sampling we were in synch, had come to an understanding of sorts.
So Kudos to DC for their Glorious and Free initiative, and I did enjoy this brew but this super suds rating comes with a patriotic point or two and a caveat. If bitters aren’t for you than neither is this brew, so buyer beware.
0 Comments