WR4
Wild Rose Brewery & Taproom

 

Appearance - Pours a deep gold with two fingers of bubbly white head.

Smell - citrus and tropical hops, bready malts, orange and grapefruit, and earthy yeast.

Taste - Citrus and tropical hops followed by the oats which add a pleasant characteristic to the brew. The bready malts, orange and grapefruit follow suit while the earthy yeast finishes the brew off.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with moderate carbonation. Finishes a tad sticky with the hops lingering.

Overall - A flavourful APA that boasts a nice addition with the oats. The oats add a nice chewy characteristic in terms of the mouthfeel of the brew. A sessionable brew for sure and would taste even better fresh on tap at the brewpub.

650ml bottle - their annual fall pale ale (I presume that this is the fourth time around), made with oats and Centennial and El Dorado hops.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, medium golden yellow colour, with a billowing tower of puffy, finely foamy, and mildly chunky off-white head, which leaves some thickly splattered lace around the glass as it rather lazily sinks out of sight.

It smells of gritty and grainy cereal malt, some orange, red grapefruit, and lemon peel, a further indistinct tropical fruitiness, and some minor leafy, weedy, and piney green hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, mixed domestic citrus flesh, still hard to pick out exotic fruity notes, a damp minerality, and more understated earthy, herbal, and floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its palate-coating frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and pretty darned smooth, with a substantial creaminess there from the get-go. It finishes off-dry, the blended malt exhibiting some lingering moxie.

Overall - well, this comes across as another pleasantly rendered version of the style, as the oats really amp up the mouthfeel, and the hops provide some decent local and foreign frooty flavours. Totally worth checking out, IMHO!

First brew of the oat pale ale. Has the body and slight gritty earthy signature of the oats. The hop profile of this is really forward and balanced and all the good of el Dorado come through without the bad. Top quality oat beer.