Welcome to another school year, and another volume in the saga of Broskies on Brewskies. This column is now in its third year, and has probably reached full adulthood. I say probably because there is always room to diversify your pallet when dealing with beer, craft or otherwise. This column is also written with our personal opinions in mind. We are by no means craft beer experts, so our reviews might miss an undertone of malt here or there.
We started with the Muskoka Brewery’s Harvest Ale. The Muskoka Brewery has been operating in Bracebridge, Ontario for about 20 years now and has provided us with one of our favourite craft beers, the Detour IPA, so we had high expectations for the Harvest Ale. It is a bitter and full bodied ale with excellent undertones of malt and rye, but it was a little underwhelming. There was also a nice, sweet undertone. This beer felt like it was brewed to be audience friendly, but it didn’t really stand out in any particular way. Overall we liked it, but couldn’t see ourselves buying a case of it. We gave it three out of five stars.
For our second beer of the night we chose Polly Want A… Pilsner from Hop City Brewing Company in Brampton, Ontario. This was a redemption round for Hop City, as last year we decided to do an issue entirely of Hop City beers and did not like any of them. Polly Want A… was a departure from this trend. Citrusy and light, this craft beer is easily drinkable and would go well with any sort of barbequed meal. However, this beer also did not do anything to stand out. It is advertised as “spicy,” a taste which we did not find. Other beers, such as Fire in the Rye from Double Trouble Brewing, do have a heat to them, but this was not present in Polly Want A… Overall, we gave this beer three out of five stars.
Lastly we drank the Release the Hounds Black IPA from the Big Rig Brewery in Kanata, Ontario. This beer intrigued us with its combination of flavours typically found separately in stouts and IPAs. We found that the traits borrowed from a stout overpowered those drawn from traditional IPAs. There were hoppy flavours to be found, but for the most part the beer was heavy and not dissimilar to a Guinness. I liked this beer more than Tristan did, but we settled on a score of three and a half out of five stars. Lovers of dark beers will enjoy this, but those looking for a new and improved IPA will have to look elsewhere.
Until next time, please taste responsibly!
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