Unique Brew SMaSH
Whistler Brewing Company

 

Whistler Brewing 'Unique Brew SMaSH' @ 5.5% , served from a 946 ml squealer purchased for $11.50
A-pour is a light gold from the squealer to a clear light gold in the glass with a small white head leaving a streaky lace along the pint
S-chinook hops , canadian superior malt
T-crisp & clean tasting smash pale ale
MF-mild/ok carbonation , medium body
Ov-ok pale ale , cool keeper squealer
prost LampertLand

Pours a slightly hazy golden colour with a slight tinge of orange and a finger thick white head that has fairly good retention eventually leaving some lacing on the glass and islands of head on top of the liquid. The nose leads with with some sweet candied malts, tropical citrus fruits and a floral hop note. The taste follows the same recipe. The flavour was a bit more bready than I expected from what the nose put forward. There is an almost citrus rind flavour in the background but a piney bitterness makes sure it only makes a passing appearance. A pretty good pale ale that has a bit of sharpness to add some complexity to the medium body and carbonation.

 

 

946ml stubbie quart bottle, another instance of Whistler's Unique Brews series - this time it's a SMaSH pale ale (Single Malt and Single Hop - and they don't specify what either is).

This beer pours a slightly hazy, pale golden amber colour, with tons of puffy, rocky, and chunky off-white head, which leaves some splotchy snow rime lace in places around the glass as it lazily sinks out of sight.

It smells of fairly saccharine tropical fruit, bready and pastry-friendly doughy caramel malt, some domestic candied citrus, and more leafy, floral, and grassy hop, er, 'bitters'. The taste is more bready and doughy pale malt, further biscuity toffee notes, a hint of hard water chalkiness, muddled citrus and otherwise exotic (pineapple and passionfruit) tropicals, and a late-blooming grassy, herbal, and floral green hoppiness.

The bubbles are nice and laid-back in their unassuming frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, just a wee bit of hoppy intransigence stumbling clumsily through the tulip garden here. It finishes off-dry, the sugary nature of both malt and hop ensuring no other fate.

Well, I gotta say that the singular ingredients employed here have resulted in a full-flavoured, and generally enjoyable New World pale ale. I'm not up to nailing down malt types beyond the patently obvious, but I'll say that it sure seems that Galaxy hops were used here - the heady tropical fruitiness steering me in that direction, I suppose.