Rare Belgian Style Pale Ale
Wild Rose Brewery & Taproom

I am always excited to track down a new offering, particularly when it comes from a local brewery. For me, this is a standard APA with somewhat of a Belgian twist. It's nothing groundbreaking - the Belgian yeast leads to active carbonation, but not much else. Either way, I'm glad that Wild Rose continues to try new things. Bravo!

 

 

Appearance - Pours an amber with three fingers of foamy white head.

Smell - belgian yeast, toasted malts, pear and honeydew aromas, spicy floral and leafy hops.

Taste - Spicy floral and leafy hops upfront followed by the belgian yeast. The pear and honeydew aromas and toasted malts help to finish the brew off.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with moderate carbonation. Finishes off dry with the spicy hops and yeast lingering.

Overall - An adequate attempt at the style. I feel as though the belgian yeast could of played more of a role in this one. The malt focus was spot on as well as other elements of the brew but this one seems to have a bit of an identity crisis.

 

 

Pours from the bomber a translucent orange-copper-amber colour; in typical Belgian fashion, there's a pretty decent, dense, mousse-like head that recedes slowly and leaves a fair amount of lacing.

Smells . . . like what it is. No false advertising here: this is a decently hopped American pale ale with Belgian yeast substituted. Piney, resinous hops, slight citrus, and fruity, musty, peppery Belgian yeast. Caramel, slight orchard fruits, perhaps coriander and clove? Slight spiciness. Taste continues on in this vein, revealing something fairly close to a beer that many brewers would no doubt sell as a "saison" these days. Belgian yeast, fruity, spicy, sweet, earthy, piney, resiny hops, slight metallic twang. Citrus pith/rind, crabapples. Almost like a bit of rye-spice? Carbonation is aggressive, typical of the yeast (I reckon), body is moderate leaning a touch heavy.

Seems like a one-off from Wild Rose, and while I appreciate that a previously straight-ahead "typical" craft brewery is trying some new things (Alberta's first widely available domestic sour, even! but that's for another review), I'm not terribly hurt by the prospects of never trying this particular brew again. Good, but muddled by a bit of an identity crisis.

650ml bottle - this is Wild Rose's (of Calgary, Alberta - c'mon, Ratebeer!) latest offering. For the winter of 2016, they've added some Belgian yeast to what sounds like a typical pale ale.

This beer pours a mostly clear, medium copper amber colour, with a fistful of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat creamy off-white head, which leaves a stellar array of cobwebbed lace around the glass as it slowly sinks away.

It smells of bready, and slightly doughy pale malt, a twinge of further caramel sweetness, mildly acerbic Belgian yeast, muddled bruised apples and darker orchard fruit, a faint earthy spiciness, and plain weedy, leafy, and floral hop bitters. The taste is gritty, grainy pale malt, edgy, yet not quite phenolic yeast, overripe apples and pears, a hard to pin down musty spice character, and more understated leafy, herbal, and perfumed floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite assertive in its fizzy posturing, and its 'come on in, the water's fine' frothiness, the body a sturdy middleweight, and generally smooth, the yeasty acridity not extending itself to this stage. It finishes off-dry, barely, as the yeast, spice, and indistinct hops come out with their plan for continued palate domination.

Overall, a decent rendering of the style, as the particular kind of yeast brings those musty and spicy, well, Belgian notes to an otherwise straight-shooting, and malt-forward New World pale ale. Another decent brew from Wild Rose, but I don't get the 'wild twist' that they mention - is making the Belgian version of a base style really all that wild and crazy at this point in time?