Bear Berry Ale
The Grizzly Paw Brewing Company
- From:
- The Grizzly Paw Brewing Company
- Alberta, Canada
- Style:
- Fruit and Field Beer
- ABV:
- Not listed
- Score:
- +9 ratings needed
- Avg:
- 3.32 | pDev: 0%
- Ratings:
- | reviews: 1
- Status:
- Retired
- Rated:
- Aug 15, 2010
- Added:
- Aug 15, 2010
- Wants:
- 0
- Gots:
- 0
NO SCORE
-
-
No description / notes.
Recent ratings and reviews.
Reviewed by biegaman from Canada (ON)
3.32/5 rDev 0%
look: 3 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3 | overall: 3
3.32/5 rDev 0%
look: 3 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3 | overall: 3
On-tap at Grizzly Paw Brewpub, in Canmore.
Bear Berry Ale is a blueberry infused beer - try saying that five times fast - that is, thankfully, not at all blue. Despite a very prominent haziness and a soft but successfully off-tinting hue, the beer retains, for the most part, its initial golden brilliance. That is a relief. The fact that there's no head or bubbles, however, is less than reassuring.
Although I was happy not to find a trace of blue colour in the appearance, I was more than hoping to find an abundance of it in the aroma. Once again my senses are pleased. And, judging by the lack of blueberry in the look and the prevalence of it in the smell, I think it's safe to assume actual berries were used and not synthetic syrups.
As any brewer can tell you, most fruits will generally contribute far more to the bouquet than they do the appearance (or taste even); it's much easier to impart the scent of berries than it is their flavour or sweetness which is why most commercial brewers resort to using syrups or extracts. The frauds are usually easy to pick out.
The modest, but very appreciable, taste of pure blueberries tells me that this brewer isn't one to take cheap shortcuts. The tartness of the berries, like their flavour, is a tad resigned but definitely notable and is infinitely more palatable than any sugary, unnaturally concentrated extract. (I typically score beers like this a little lower but I'm bumping it up a score since blueberries happen to be one of my favourites.)
While the beer maintains its bitterness (and tartness) and veers far clear of being juice-like sweet, its maltiness is nevertheless plain and tasteless, its carbonation painfully flat; I'm glad it still tastes like a beer but it needs to drink like one! I recognize the targeted audience for fruit beers but must insist a little more malt wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Fruit beers can be fickle things: using real fruits often results in plain, predictable beers with too subtle a fruitiness; synthetic extracts typically turn out cloyingly sweet and obviously artificial products. This brewer somehow got it right - a beer with modest but appreciable blueberry essence that would indeed meet the bears' approval. It met mine!
Aug 15, 2010Bear Berry Ale is a blueberry infused beer - try saying that five times fast - that is, thankfully, not at all blue. Despite a very prominent haziness and a soft but successfully off-tinting hue, the beer retains, for the most part, its initial golden brilliance. That is a relief. The fact that there's no head or bubbles, however, is less than reassuring.
Although I was happy not to find a trace of blue colour in the appearance, I was more than hoping to find an abundance of it in the aroma. Once again my senses are pleased. And, judging by the lack of blueberry in the look and the prevalence of it in the smell, I think it's safe to assume actual berries were used and not synthetic syrups.
As any brewer can tell you, most fruits will generally contribute far more to the bouquet than they do the appearance (or taste even); it's much easier to impart the scent of berries than it is their flavour or sweetness which is why most commercial brewers resort to using syrups or extracts. The frauds are usually easy to pick out.
The modest, but very appreciable, taste of pure blueberries tells me that this brewer isn't one to take cheap shortcuts. The tartness of the berries, like their flavour, is a tad resigned but definitely notable and is infinitely more palatable than any sugary, unnaturally concentrated extract. (I typically score beers like this a little lower but I'm bumping it up a score since blueberries happen to be one of my favourites.)
While the beer maintains its bitterness (and tartness) and veers far clear of being juice-like sweet, its maltiness is nevertheless plain and tasteless, its carbonation painfully flat; I'm glad it still tastes like a beer but it needs to drink like one! I recognize the targeted audience for fruit beers but must insist a little more malt wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Fruit beers can be fickle things: using real fruits often results in plain, predictable beers with too subtle a fruitiness; synthetic extracts typically turn out cloyingly sweet and obviously artificial products. This brewer somehow got it right - a beer with modest but appreciable blueberry essence that would indeed meet the bears' approval. It met mine!
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