Although the Beach Ball Body™ Fitness Program does maintain a certain body weight conducive to my lifestyle, if you’re not careful the old cholesterol reading can climb the charts like a new Taylor Swift track. Low cal dip and low salt chips certainly help the cause, but sometimes you need something to balance out the poutine, pizza, cake and cookies and the occasional Big Mac. Enter oats! According to many people way smarter than our Editor (which doesn’t really narrow down the list, now does it) * oats are good for you. But cream? Not so good for you according to everyone except the cream sellers. But what about Oats & Cream? Well, you’ll need a Fine Balance to make that combo work.
Okay, that lame duck segue will hopefully be offset by an excellent IPA. Enter Fine Balance and their Oats & Cream IPA. I first encountered FB at the Niagara Flowfest and their eclectic kick ass Stuck on S’more Imperial Dessert Stout was almost s’more than I could handle. So on the way back from our recent AGM I decided to drop in on this K-Town crafter to see what was brewing.
This beer makes for a pretty presentation, a banana orange pour, thick as a brick, with a bright white two finger foamy head. An impressive pour, website worthy. An aroma that is hoppy and creamy, with fruit to boot. The first taste is a tropical juicy fruit salad with lotsa hops and a nearing double kick bite to it leading into a tart aftertaste. Complex, original and quite tasty. A nice full creamy mouthfeel, almost nitro, the oats and lactose doing their job. No shrinking violet this one, or any other fading flower, it’s all happening here. You wouldn’t be surprised to know that along with the fruit-full flavour, the kick and the cream, it’s all in balance, and not just any balance, a fine balance at that.
This Oats & Cream is definitely not for breakfast, but it is for me. After a host of lackadaisical IPAs this one restored my faith in the genre. Great beer.
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