Imperial Ginger Cat
Mill Street Brew Pub

Hazy and cloudy dark gold color with few activity. Slightly creamy and bubbly beige 2-3 finger head, lasting around 5-10 minutes, with good lacing. Flavors of orange, light passion fruits, peach, ginger, vanilla, coriander, wheat, sweet grains, nutmeg, and floral spices. Bready and wheathy, quite sugary and a bit candy like, soft spices. Creamy and silky full body with moderate prickly and crispy carbonation. Medium strength finish, gingerbread and red ale kind of feel, a bit of straw and cereal, soft tropical fruits and clove, with some noble hops. Belgian like. Smells like orange crush, almost feels like a radler. Good freshness and taste, not overly ginger. Very nicely bodied, thick and filling. A bit too sugary I think, too candy like. Good accessibility, not harsh. Overall good quality craft, a nice try but I wouldn't drink this casually. Festive for once a year, like Halloween or the holidays.

 

750 mL wax-sealed swing-top bottle from the LCBO; the date stamp is smudged, but as a new domestic release I'd be surprised if it were much more than a month past its bottling date, if that. Served slightly chilled.

Pours a hazy, medium golden-amber hue, topped with one finger of soapy white head that dissipates over the next 90 seconds or so. A sickly-thin collar survives, but not much else - certainly no lace, with only a few bubbly wisps scattered across the surface. Visually average, but the aroma seems more inviting - citrus oil and mandarin orange are quite apparent, backed with grainy, wheaty pale malts and a slight candied ginger spiciness. Mildly floral and pleasantly fruity, though the presence of orange extract causes it to come off as a little artificial in nature.

Much less subtle than their original Ginger Cat - but I suppose if subtlety were the aim, they probably wouldn't have described it with the term "imperial". Earthy, candied ginger root spiciness is a continuous presence throughout, with only the citrusy orange flavours managing to be more central to this brew's flavour profile. Tangerine, zesty orange peel and bitter citrus oil notes each take successive turns in the limelight, with lightly wheaty, grainy malts and faint caramelized sugar sweetness blending into the background. Finishes with hints of grassy, floral hops and more candied ginger spice, the latter briefly lingering into the aftertaste. Medium-bodied, with very low carbonation that weakly agitates the surface of your tongue - not exactly thin, but the texture is still a little watery and flat. Drinkable without being memorable - finishing the whole bottle yourself wouldn't be much trouble, but I think splitting it with someone else is the best option.

Final Grade: 3.62, a B grade. Mill Street's Imperial Ginger Cat makes for a decent quaff, but I still feel that there's some room for improvement. I recall trying regular-strength Ginger Cat about a year or two ago, and having a similarly lukewarm response to that one - in fact, I just went back to look at my review of its 'little brother', and most of the complaints that I made back then seem to apply to this Imperialized version, as well (including the thin body, cloying citrus oil, and poor head retention). I guess it turns out that simply upping the concentrations of orange peel, ginger and alcohol isn't enough to do much more than temporarily distract me from its structural weaknesses.