Grand River Brewing: Traditional Ale
Magnotta Brewery
- From:
- Magnotta Brewery
- Ontario, Canada
- Style:
- American Amber / Red Ale
- ABV:
- 5%
- Score:
- +8 ratings needed
- Avg:
- 3.71 | pDev: 1.08%
- Ratings:
- | reviews: 2
- Status:
- Active
- Rated:
- Oct 30, 2025
- Added:
- Dec 16, 2020
- Wants:
- 0
- Gots:
- 0
NO SCORE
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Our Plowman's Ale gets a makeover. New name and look but the same great tasting brew. Our Traditional Ale is inspired by hard-working folk who spend long days shaping their world. It’s bold, full of flavour and quite simply, it’s just damn good beer. Put your feet up and let this brew go to work.
Recent ratings and reviews.
Reviewed by talisen-crw from Canada (ON)
3.75/5 rDev +1.1%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75
3.75/5 rDev +1.1%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75
At my lady Pamela's house; canned and chilled, 473mL in a pint glass. From the Magnotta Winery on Division Rd. in nearby Windsor. Canned January 21/25. My fourth beer from the Vaughan, Ontario brewery, and for 2025. Lovingly endorsed by Gracie the cat...
Oct 30, 2025
Reviewed by thehyperduck from Canada (ON)
3.66/5 rDev -1.3%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3 | overall: 3.5
3.66/5 rDev -1.3%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3 | overall: 3.5
473 mL can from Metro; no canning date and served slightly chilled. This can exploded into foam as soon as I opened it, despite the fact that it has been sitting idle in the fridge for days. So my helpful suggestion is to crack this one over a sink.
This ale is foggy orange-amber in colour, with a gentle pour producing copious quantities of billowing, puffy, off white-tinted head. It requires the better part of ten minutes to fall back, coating the glass with numerous patches of sticky, delicate lace in the process. A lumpy cap and generous collar remain in place - looks great, but there is such a thing as too much head. Bready malts, toasted grains, orchard fruit and citrus on the nose, e.g. orange peel with a twinge of earl grey tea.
This isn't bad, but it's no Plowman's Ale. I'm getting grainy pale malts, bread and light caramel sweetness, balanced by notes of red apple, citrus peel and leafy, earthy hops; restrained bitterness dissipates into a mildly malty aftertaste. Light in body, with aggressive carbonation that froths up in the mouth; a little bloaty, but otherwise drinkable.
Final Grade: 3.66, a B grade. Plowman's Ale was the very first Grand River beer I had the chance to try, and back in 2011 I was very impressed with it. So, on one level, it's great that Magnotta is keeping at least a few of these recipes around and putting them to use. On another level, Traditional Ale doesn't strike me as a high-fidelity copy of Plowman's: this version is overcarbonated, and doesn't seem to have the same rich malt character. Also, the leafy, earthy bitterness has been toned down considerably. Now, keep in mind, I'm going by memory here, so maybe I'm just misremembering, but I doubt that because I drank quite a lot of Plowman's Ale back in the mid-2010's. This is dumbed down, but still a passable American amber/English hybrid ale.
Oct 24, 2024This ale is foggy orange-amber in colour, with a gentle pour producing copious quantities of billowing, puffy, off white-tinted head. It requires the better part of ten minutes to fall back, coating the glass with numerous patches of sticky, delicate lace in the process. A lumpy cap and generous collar remain in place - looks great, but there is such a thing as too much head. Bready malts, toasted grains, orchard fruit and citrus on the nose, e.g. orange peel with a twinge of earl grey tea.
This isn't bad, but it's no Plowman's Ale. I'm getting grainy pale malts, bread and light caramel sweetness, balanced by notes of red apple, citrus peel and leafy, earthy hops; restrained bitterness dissipates into a mildly malty aftertaste. Light in body, with aggressive carbonation that froths up in the mouth; a little bloaty, but otherwise drinkable.
Final Grade: 3.66, a B grade. Plowman's Ale was the very first Grand River beer I had the chance to try, and back in 2011 I was very impressed with it. So, on one level, it's great that Magnotta is keeping at least a few of these recipes around and putting them to use. On another level, Traditional Ale doesn't strike me as a high-fidelity copy of Plowman's: this version is overcarbonated, and doesn't seem to have the same rich malt character. Also, the leafy, earthy bitterness has been toned down considerably. Now, keep in mind, I'm going by memory here, so maybe I'm just misremembering, but I doubt that because I drank quite a lot of Plowman's Ale back in the mid-2010's. This is dumbed down, but still a passable American amber/English hybrid ale.
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