Hay City
Olds College Teaching Brewery

 

Pours from the can a pale, translucent, albeit with decent, fairly dense head. This is a quenching, middle-of-the-road drink with a lot of pale lager-like characteristics: decently crisp, refreshing, clean.

Some biscuit/cracker, lots of graininess, perhaps an ever so faint herbal/citrus hop presence. Vaguely English, almost, in its leanings, but nevertheless light-bodied and tremendously drinkable. I'm betting this is popular on porches in the small town of Olds, Alberta, particularly in the dead of summer. I know I could kill a few without a second thought.

355ml can poured into tulip.

Pours a clear straw yellow with three chubby fingers of eggshell head that leaves Looney Toons desert landscape lace as it recedes.

Smells of pleasantly grainy wheat malt, mild orchard fruit and pithy citrus, and faint green hops.

Tastes of unsalted cracker wheat malt, apple and pear skin and more soft green hops.

Feels crisp and peppy. Light bodied with frothy carbonation. Finishes off-dry.

Verdict: Recommended. Easy, pleasant and refreshing.

This is a dandy wheat ale. I have sampled it in several incarnations (cans, growlers, pints) and it is consistently bright and easy to drink. It smells lovely - plenty of wheat and faint floral esters. The taste is more wheat goodness - like chewing on a fresh grain in the middle of a field. Overall, this is a delightful choice for a nice fresh tasting brew. It reminds me of Big Rock Grasshopper when it first arrived in the early 90's. Too bad that the teaching college is outpacing Alberta's oldest craft brewery...

Appearance - Pours an amber hue with two fingers of creamy white head.

Smell - wheat, bready caramalts, floral and earthy hops.

Taste - Starts with an upfront flavour of bready caramalts, then shifts to a crisp wheat flavour. Floral and earthy hops are on the light to moderate scale of intensity.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.

Overall - A solid wheat beer from Olds that delivers straightforward flavours. I tend to like my wheat beers unfiltered, but otherwise a good offering.

16oz glass at the Underground - could this one's name be any more rural Albertan-sounding?

This beer appears a crystal clear, pale golden yellow colour, with two fingers (boo for a bar-pour) of puffy, mildly foamy, and somewhat creamy off-white head, which leaves a bit of hanging cloud lace around the glass as things quickly dissolve.

It smells of bready, grainy, and biscuity wheat malt, peppy citrus rind, a hint of pine resin, subtle red berry fruit notes, and some plain herbal and grassy green hops. The taste is bready, doughy, and wet crackery pale and wheat malt, muted orange and lemon citrus flesh, wet stone paths and the overhead pine trees that inform them, and more earthy, leafy, and weedy hoppiness.

The bubbles are pretty overt in their sassy and gassy frothiness, the body a decent middleweight for the style, and smooth enough, with nothing really into mucking about here. It finishes off-dry, just, the malt sadly trailing off, while the unexpected fruity hops linger like they have untoward designs on the place.

Overall, a tasty and pleasantly engaging wheat ale, one that doesn't appear to be so, even after a somewhat thorough analysis - ESB and Yankee pale ale notes abound, and I am surely not complaining, so hey (hay?), what's up with that? Oh, those crazy brewing kids!

 

 

Bought from Olds College brewery in Olds Alberta.
Pours a light straw colour with 2 inches of head. The head settles down to a micro-head with good lacing. taste is of a nice grassiness with citrus, a little bit of Banana. Not much spiciness, not like the Euro wheat beers. A very crisp and refreshing beer. Is my favourite wheat beer from Alberta