Impact
Stack Brewing

Appearance: Poured with a thumb of head that retained quite well but did not lace at all. The body is a transparent, dark brown that shows a solid amount of carbonation.

Smell: Not much here to be honest, even after ample warming. What I do catch is your fairly standard Altbier stuff. A touch of earth backed by toasted bread and toffee malt.

Taste: Starts with toasted grain that offers up toffee and caramel with slight touches of plums and figs that that finishes off with a predominantly earth hops note with slight floral and peppery touches. Oddly enough, I don't feel the name does it justice here. I don't get Impact from this beer, I get just a nice, well balanced mellowness.

Mouthfeel: Transitioning is done well, and the aftertaste is very mild as that final dry pepper note seems to clean up most of the aftertaste save for some mild toast notes. That's oddly my biggest complaint here. It's just mild enough to give you something, but doesn't seem to last enough encouraging you to drink at a pace that you think would ruin things, but it just doesn't. The carbonation helps out the entire beer as well, but never gets out of control.

Drinkability: Incredibly easy on the system, and refreshing enough. That dry note makes you want to drink more, but know it will clean things up and be a more subdued experience is an odd frustration. You have to drink more because you want to return to the mellow beer, but it just doesn't seem to last. I don't know why it's coming across as frustrating here, but I'm not going to hold it against it because it disappeared ludicrously fast and it's on the lighter end of medium bodied so it fills it's roll well.

Final Thoughts: This is an Altbier that drinks like a lager or a low ABV bitter. You start drinking it, and it's gone. This beer is ideal for those dog days of summer where the fall is just starting to rear it's head, but it's still quite warm out. I'm not sure if it's the truest to the style as most Alt's I've had tend to be a bit drier and bit more toffee focused, but you certainly can't go wrong here.

 

 

 

 

473 ml can served cold into a pint glass. Purchased from the LCBO for $2.95 CDN. First time seeing this Sudbury Brewery in stores this far south.

Appearance - Dark ruddy amber colored beer. Minimal head and it dissipates in seconds. No lacing to speak of either.

Smell - Earthy, toasted grains, some subtle caramel notes, a little hoppy. Pretty much what you should be expecting out of a good altbier.

Taste - Middling bitterness, earthy again, with more subtle sweetness than many in the style.Caramel and coarse grain flavors abound. This is quite good.

Mouthfeel - Medium-light body, carbonation is slightly lower than average. Finish is less dry than some, which works for me. A little more watery than some as well, but again it works pretty good.

Overall - Glad to try Impact Altbier from Stack Brewing; a fine altbier with plenty of flavors and hits all the notes I'm looking for. I'm thinking based on this beer alone, that they'd also do a pretty good Oktoberfest.

Oct 29 2023

 

 

Can from the lcbo for $3. Bit of an odd sour note.

 

 

473 mL can from the LCBO; no dating info. Served slightly chilled.

Pours a translucent, hazy copper colour with amber highlights, topped off with an inch of light beige-coloured froth that only lasts about 90 seconds before dissipating entirely. A thin, soapy collar remains; no lacing, however. Toffee, caramel and biscuity, grainy, lightly toasted malts comprise the bulk of the aroma, with additional notes of prune/plum, nuts and some earthy, leafy hops.

A respectable German-style brown ale - the flavour profile follows the nose. Toasted grains, along with some bready, biscuity malts, nicely complement the sweet notes of caramel and molasses that follow. Mildly fruity mid-sip - I'm mostly getting plum and maybe a bit of fig - with subtly leafy, earthy hop flavours rounding out the back end nicely. Aftertaste includes some nutty sweetness that fades over the next few seconds, leaving the palate feeling off-dry. Relatively light in body, with moderate carbonation levels that continuously prickle the palate lightly. Not exactly crisp, but not really soft, either - this one's texture falls in the frothy no-man's land in between.

Final Grade: 3.73, a B grade. Stack's Impact Altbier is a solid example of this oft-overlooked style, though like most alts it's not exactly a head-turner. This is a highly quaffable, malt-forward brown ale that I could see myself returning to in the future. Comparing it to a geological bolide event is probably a bit much, but stylistically I have no real complaints about Impact - give 'er a go if it sounds interesting to you.

 

 

 

 

 

Look: The beer has a copper body, an amber leg and a thin white head, which disappeared quickly. At the beginning of the tasting, the bubbles resulting from the carbonation are visible.

Smell: The nose is floral. It is dominated by the malt, which hints at a nice sweetness. The warmth one can smell is a hint of toasty taste.

Taste: The beer has an exquisite malt profile. It is reminiscent of caramel. Afterwards, it shifted to notes of toasted and grainger breads. The notes of caramel were in the background in the finale in order to balance the hops' taste, which were a little peppery.

Feel: Light-bodied beer with a slight trace of pepper in the finale. The finish is clean and dry, but there was hopefully no astringency. The carbonation can be felt a little bit at the beginning of the tasting.

Overall: This is a very refreshing beer that is very much to style. Its ABV clocks in at 5.2%, which is 0.3% under the tolerated limit. The only reservation I have is with the poor head retention.