Monkey Pod Rye Ale
Tree Brewing Co.

 

 

 

L: A pale yellow orange with a nice white head that leaves almost nothing.

S: strong malty presence with a slight hop to it, not a lot else a little bit of fruityness.

T: Pineapple, banana, tropical fruits, with a slight rye presence but almost nonexistent.

F: Full bodied with a fair amount of carbonation but a nice level that leaves it tasting good.

O: A nice beer that you could defiantly have a few of on a hot day.

This one caught me off guard with the Belgian yeast offering up some sweet bananas and cloves alongside a nice hint of peppery spice and some nice earthy hop undertones. Well crafted and easy drinking.

 

 

I find that rye beer can be difficult to "get right". This pours with a nice colour but a quickly dissipating fizz. The spice and rye substance is wanting, as well. Make no mistake - the overall composition makes it a reasonable ale, but it lacks the "extra mile" of the very best rye ales.

 

Pours a slightly hazy orange-ish/yellow. Contrary to most beers featuring Belgian yeast, there's not much head here. And what head there is dissipates fairly quickly.

Slight almost . . . milkiness (though not in the sour, lacto- sense). Bready, grainy, slightly spicy and green. Baking spices. Slight leafy greens, and Belgian, estery fruitiness.

The Belgian yeast overpowers the rye spice just a bit, but it's still an interesting combo, one buoyed by a slightly piney, resiny hop presence. Bit of a caraway, clove flavour, hints of a bakery. Sweet yeast. Bready, dough-y. Sweet but with enough hop bitterness to rein it in. Nice body, nice moderate carbonation.

There's a lot going on here, between the rye, the yeast, and the dry-hopping (not to mention the lack of filtering). And yet it actually kind of works. Could use a bit more rye spice to counterweight the Belgian yeast, but it's still quite likeable.

 

 

 

355ml bottle, resplendent in Tree Brewing's new 'splashier' marketing look.

This beer pours a sort of glassy, medium golden amber colour, with one chubby finger of puffy, tightly foamy, and mildly creamy off-white head, which leaves some streaky melted marshmallow lace around the glass as it slowly and gently abates.

It smells of bready, doughy rye and wheat grain, somewhat spicy yeast, muddled pome fruit, and a soft earthy, weedy, and floral hoppiness. The taste is more grainy, bready rye malt, a growing toasted caramel sweetness, still hovering and mildly phenolic yeast, a waning light orchard fruitiness, and steady, if understated weedy, leafy, and dead floral hops.

The carbonation is adequate in its lifting and parting frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and mostly smooth, just a combined rye and yeast astringency pulling back on the reins a tad. It finishes off-dry, the mutt-ish malt stumbling a bit, but not enough to knock it off of its perch among the remains of the bland hop day.

A plain and unassuming rye ale, nothing particularly interesting going on here. Well-made in its earnestness, but it really shows a knack for losing me well before bottom's up time. If you're a big fan of this brewery, then maybe give it a go, otherwise, spend your loonies on other, more engaging Canuck suds purveyors.