#Prairie Pride
Tool Shed Brewing

 

This is another beer that I've been really looking forward to, and I was not disappointed with the result. Milky in appearance, mildly tart, and incredibly refreshing. It is truly unique, and a great example of the innovation taking place in my home province's beer scene. I am a proud Albertan and this is a beer I am equally proud of.

 

355ml can. An all-Albertan brew (take that, Budweiser), where even the wild yeast were harvested here, and the canning machine was made here, too. Wow.

This beer pours a hazy, yet bright medium golden straw colour, with three fingers of puffy, chunky, and fizzy dirty white head, which leaves some decent Runic script lace around the glass as it slowly but surely dissipates.

It smells of grainy and doughy wheat malt, damp banana chips, a gently spicy yeastiness, mild clove/coriander notes, and some very tame earthy, weedy, and musty floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy pale malt, a lesser edgy wheatiness, white peppercorn and clove spice, subtle estery yeast, dried banana, ephemeral generic citrus rind, and more well understated earthy, leafy, and floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is average in its palate-taunting frothiness, the body a pleasant middleweight, and mostly smooth, just a touch of yeast intransigence kind of marring the new paint job here. It finishes off-dry, but not by much, as the spice and yeast essences ride this one out to the back forty.

Overall, I am duly impressed by the result of this somewhat audacious experiment - a clean, crisp, and ultimately refreshing version of a style that is normally anything but, at least to me. At any rate, seek this one out, and enjoy it with a nod to all the good, good stuff that grows in our fair province.