Sai Whaaat?
Olds College Teaching Brewery

 

650ml bottle - this was produced in conjunction with Alberta Beer Fest, or whatever they're called, and that's all I have to say about that.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, medium golden yellow colour, with two zaftig fingers of puffy, rocky, and yet somewhat fizzy eggshell white head, which leaves some decent broadly-spanning cobwebbed lace around the glass as it quickly evaporates.

It smells of gritty and grainy mixed cereal malt, some estery yeastiness, an indistinct earthy spice, and very tame leafy, musty, and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is bready and grainy pale malt, some muddled wheaten and rye-based crackery notes, butter that's been sitting on the counter for too long, some muddled domestic pome, banana, and citrus fruitiness, fading ground peppercorns, and more plain earthy, weedy, and musky floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite restrained in its barely-there frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and mostly smooth, but for a minor bland pithiness, that seems to have been there from the get-go. It finishes off-dry, the blended malt and fruity esters quietly closing down the bar for the night.

Overall - this comes across as an earnest attempt to render an old-school style with local Alberta ingredients (not a bad idea, of course), and it generally succeeds. Toss in the weird Euro fantasy video label imagery, and we're good to go on this holiday long weekend!