Big Boots Brew Heather Ale
Tool Shed Brewing

 

355ml can, the result of the 2017 International Women's Collaboration Brew Day, where female brewers get together to create a beer, with some of the sales proceeds going to further their brewsters in arms in the craft beer industry - here, it's the Pink Boots Society, which helps women enrolled in the Olds College brewing program.

This beer pours a mostly clear, medium copper amber colour, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly off-white head, which leaves some streaky snow rime lace around the glass as things evenly subside.

It smells of musty florals, grainy and bready pale malt, some indistinct pome and citrus fruity esters, an earthy yeastiness, and a very mild leafy, weedy, and herbal noble hop bitterness. The taste is semi-sweet, bready and doughy pale malt, hints of generic caramel, a musky and earthy floral character, still hard to parse domestic fruity notes, and more well understated weedy, herbal, and grassy verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite light on its equally fizzy and frothy feet, the body a decent middleweight, and generally smooth, with a nice airy creaminess arising as soon as things warm up a tad around here. It finishes off-dry, the base malt keeping things straight and true.

Overall, this comes across as a pleasant enough pale ale, however one with a somewhat lopsided floral bitterness, which I suppose is the whole point. Easy to drink, flavourful, and another worthy installment in this annual ode to and fundraiser for the female quotient in Alberta's brewing industry.