Henry Hudson's Cockeyed Dark Lager
Big Rock Brewery

 

20oz pint, at Hudsons' Oliver location, the current offering in their house brand Captain's Discovery Collection.

This beer appears a crystal clear, dark bronzed amber hue, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy off-white head, which leaves an array of skewed wishbone lace around the glass as it steadily recedes.

It smells of bready caramel malt, a mild oily bar-top nuttiness, some moderately stale earthy, dark fruit, and leafy, weedy hops. The taste is more nutty caramel malt, a tad musty in its disposition, softly astringent drupe fruit, and weakly floral, earthy hops.

The bubbles are a bit frizzy, but generally well behaved, the body a well-wrought medium weight, and commensurate in its smoothness. It finishes off-dry, the nutty malt and somewhat edgy fruitiness slowly thumbwrestling for our attention.

Not a bad dark lager, a good gateway beer, blah blah Big Rock blah. This is neither absurd, nor harebrained, nor ludicrous, nor illogicial, as conversely professed on the table talkers here. Maybe these descriptors refer to the average Hudsons patron, I dunno, but this is just a slightly above the norm, snag-free Canadian dark lager. So right on the money, I guess, for this establishment.