Craft Beer Reviews Canada

Appearance: This beer comes in an attractive 473mL can, typical of Eighty-Eight Brewing's packaging. The colour palette is appealing with contrasting colours of purple, yellow and navy. The can was marked with the date it was packaged: March 20, 2020. I reviewed this beer on April 18, 2020—so it was relatively fresh. I poured this beer into a Spiegalau IPA glass. The colour was golden verging on orange. The beer was relatively clear but not crystal. After pouring, the beer featured a medium head of foam that dissipated somewhat quickly. The beer laced the glass nicely as I sampled it. Aroma: A vegetal smell, somewhere between grass (wet) and hay (dry). A slight resinous odour. I couldn't place it but my wife said it reminded her of marijuana. To be honest, there's not much in the way of fruit—and definitely no hint of tropical fruit like the brewery suggests. Taste: I'm just not feeling this one. A vegetal taste aligns unfortunately with the aroma. As the beer warme...

The vast majority of beer is made with just four simple ingredients: water, malt, hops and yeast. Everything from lagers to stouts, saisons and IPAs are derived from the same combination of basic brewing elements. Of course, there are an almost unlimited array of options for malt, hops and yeast—not to mention all of the books written on the science of adjusting the mineral content of water for different styles and effects. Brewers typically use more than one kind of malt and hops in their recipes. But sometimes simplicity is king. There is a different kind of recipe, popular among the homebrewing community, called Single Malt and Single Hop beer—or a SMaSH. There are many benefits in brewing a SMaSH. A desire for simplicity in brewing is one. Understanding and appreciating the flavour contributions made by a specific set of ingredients is another. Perfecting your process by reducing recipe variables is yet one more. I've been brewing for over nine years and during that time I...

I've been brewing for nine years. My brewing evolved from propane-fired BIAB to a 10-gallon RIMS and last year I decided I wanted to simplify my life plus brew indoors so I bought a Grainfather. (I'm pretty happy with it, too.) My cold-side process evolved other years, too. Got a freezer and temperature controller. Started cold-crashing and using gelatin. Bought Fermonsters and added spigots. Moved from bottling to kegging. But over the past couple of years, I was really disappointed with my beers. Hops just weren't showing up as expected. And beers were sweeter or maltier than expected. NEIPAs with 8oz hopstands and 8oz dryhops were just meh. I couldn't figure it out. More hops didn't help. I made so many batches that didn't meet my expectations and I even dumped a few. I tried all kinds of water adjustments and other techniques to improve my beers but nothing worked. Late last year I kegged another New England IPA. It was loaded with Citra and it tasted ...

Canada's best beer comes from British Columbia. I'm pretty confident of that. Some of my favourite Canadian breweries can be found there, like Superflux , Twin Sails and Boombox . The subject of this review is one of the latter's limited releases: Synthwave. I missed this beer the first time it was brewed and released but managed to pick up a four-pack recently. I believe it was brewed in December 2019 so it's not 100% fresh but not old enough yet that a review would be inappropriate. Information on the brewery's website is sparse at best—this beer does not appear there at all. A rough grain bill is printed on the side of the can and I found a list of hops at the beer blog Bring Your Porter to the Slaughter . This beer features a combination of Citra, Mosaic and Motueka hops. Citra and Mosaic are par for the course when it comes to contemporary IPAs, especially ones that are influenced by the hazy, fruit-forward beers popularized by certain New England brewerie...