Kicking off Muskoka Oktoberfest weekend with the Cranky Old Men in the house and I always like to start the festivities with a unique and memorable sampling. How about a special edition 750ml local series from the near North brewer formerly known as New Ontario, now known as Wildwoods. An amber maple lager, with maple syrup provided by not one, not two, but twelve local maple syrup producers. One dozen tree sap collectors and boilers stirring and stewing that sweet Canadian confection into my beer. I love me an amber, and I am partial to a dollop of maple syrup on my stack of flapjacks. But the maple in my beer needs to be subtle, and twelve tree tappers pouring a pile of sweet sticky syrup into my suds had me concerned. Fear not, I thought. And my fears regarding massive amounts of maple syrup in my beer where in fact uncalled for. That’s the good news.
COM and New Ontario go way back and we have enjoyed a number of their core and specialty pours over the years. Our first Wildwoods sampling, Nacho Average Lager, was average, so I had high hopes, high apple pie in the sky hopes,* for this amber, a genre I love dearly.
Now for the bad news. A pour as amber as it gets, a maple syrupy pour for sure. No head, as in none, nothing, no wisps, traces or vestiges of head were sighted at any time during or after the pouring. I must admit, a no head start always has me concerned about the finish. A very slight caramel aroma, so mild it could be my imagination, a subconscious sense of smell? The very first thing I noticed was how watery it was, very thin. The amber and maple are both there but no hops or fizz or anything else substantial. Without any beer attributes what you end up with is a flat root beer like flavouring. The only compliment I can muster is the maple was subtle, not overpowering so they got that right. I can only assume the beer went flat? Perhaps the fancy Quillfeldt stopper** didn’t provide the air tight quite all right seal? After no head start the top didn’t stop.
To give you an idea how this first beer of the evening went over, the only COM who actually enjoyed this beer was our tokin’ non-drinker. We were disappointed but not distraught, the beer fridge was well stock-toberfested so on to not bigger, but better beers.
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