Doc Tegart's Extra Special Bitter
Arrowhead Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I opted for a growler of this beer during a recent visit to Arrowhead. I was pleasantly surprised, given my previous experience. The malt and hop balance is, in my mind, close to perfect. There is an earthy, substantial feel to this ESB, with just enough resin and hop to fulfil the "bitter" billing. A delightful ale to site around the campsite, even with a fire ban in place.

650ml bomber. Nice to see the bottle format from this brewery arrive in Alberta.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, medium copper amber colour, with three fingers of puffy, broadly bubbly, and somewhat fizzy off-white head, which leaves some stellar tightly-packed webbed lace around the glass as it slowly ebbs away.

It smells of zippy green forest floor pine cone esters, bittersweet orange and white grapefruit citrus, biscuity pale malt, wet saltine crackers, flinty chalk, and further earthy, weedy hops. The taste is grainy pale malt, bready caramel, a more refined leafy pine astringency than in the nose, generic citrus pith, more sodden soup crackers, and a tame earthy, floral, and mildly perfumed hoppiness.

The carbonation is pretty low-key and understated, barely an untoward burble to be bargained for, the body just on the leeward side of middleweight, so-so smooth, and a tad clammy, those hops apparently looking for a place to happen. It finishes a bit off-dry, the waning English-friendly malt keeping a stiff upper lip, while those hop kids are distracted by the latest shiny bauble.

A fairly true to form version of the style, the well-laid out hoppiness and biscuity malt scoring big points in their blowing up of my skirt - would love to spend some time on the water in Invermere during the summer, idly putting this stuff back. Ah, someday, ma cherie.