El Cortez Puerko Darko
Wild Rose Brewery & Taproom

1L howler from Keg n Cork in south Edmonton. This appears to be a contract brew for El Cortez, a trendy Mexican restaurant off of Whyte Avenue. Not really all that sure about the name - is it a play on Puerko Fino, a heretofore unknown to me Argentinian musician?

This beer pours a clear, medium red-brick amber colour, with three fingers of puffy, tightly foamy, and somewhat creamy tan head, which leaves some layered frilly lace around the glass as it gently sinks out of sight.

It smells of semi-sweet, doughy and pastry-adjacent caramel malt, some candied tropical fruitiness, lightly roasted nuts, and earthy, leafy, and sort of grassy hop bitters. The taste is more bready and doughy caramel malt, muddled citrus flesh and further exotic fruity esters, some cocoa-tinged bar-top nuttiness, an ethereal cuppa java character, and plain weedy, leafy, and sort of floral noble hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly laid-back in its hard to really pick out frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and mostly smooth, just a wee fruity edginess the metaphorical fairy tale pea here - but, hey, it also gets kind of creamy as things warm up a bit! It finishes well off-dry, the fruity caramel malt and meek hops tripping out into the street as if after a sensible bender.

Overall, this is a pleasant enough brown/amber ale, the worldly-seeming fruity hops the reason I plopped this into the style that I did (please correct me if I'm wrong, as always). Not too sure if this is all that different from the Barracks Brown, but what I do know is that this would work well to offset some spicy Mexican fare - perhaps the design in the first place.