Cranky Reviews

Hot Diggity Dog

Check out the artwork on the can. Looks like a nice tiger pattern but look closer. Twenty-two tigers and a hot dog? What’s that all about?

That got me wondering how old Noah made sure that those two tigers didn’t end up making a few other species extinct on their 40 day and 40 night poor weather Mediterranean cruise.* Then I got thinking about Life of Pi, with young Pi surviving on his small boat for not 40, but 227 days, with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker on board. On that boat the carnivores were not as well behaved as they were on the ark, that’s for sure. On Pi’s boat the hyena starts eating the other animals until the tiger finally eats the hyena, just for a laugh (sorry, couldn’t resist that). **

The rousse style of beer seems to be popular in La Belle Province, where our brewer of the hour, Brassierie du Bois Blanc, hail from. A rousse is a red amber ale with only hints of amberesqueness and many other varied traits resulting in a complex brew that varies from rousse to rousse. Rousse translates to “red head” and as one would expect, these brews resemble a more traditional red ale but in colour and presentation only. Enough beer talk, let’s see if this brew can walk the walk so to speak.

A dark red blackberry (the fruit not the phone) pour, with a petit sliver of blanc for a head.  A ruby red aroma almost berry beery fruit. First swig comes up amber malt start with a sweet berry fruit finish. Not hoppy or bitter, easy drinking. It reminds me of an untangy, untart, berry sour. Interesting, different and tasty. Now the berries are taking over, the initial amber malt flavour has given way to a dark berry sweet. A very different brew. Enjoyable for a change but definitely a one and done type of brew.