Maple Spiced Pecan Old Ale
Waterloo Brewing

Pow! You can smell this one from twenty paces. Aggressively sweet, full on maple syrup thing. If you're coming straight from the sugar shack and setting down to a beer, this one won't faze you. Otherwise be ready to have it right up in your face. Not quite where you can pour it over your pancakes, but not too far off. Might work with vanilla ice cream to fashion a maple beer float.

I'm partial to maple syrup, so I'm maybe showing this brew a little more mercy than I should. It will definitely not be to all tastes. Super sweet in almost every aspect. Very different from those things out there that are brewed using sap.

This'll be a one-off novelty for most folks, best a sippin' dessert beer, I think. Or marry it to some ham or baked beans to give it some context.

Another in a line of things where Waterloo smothers an average beer in some sort of syrup or juice, Lipstick on a pig, so to speak.

Good luck to you.

 

 

473 ml can served cold into an oversized wine glass. LCBO purchase for just over $3 CDN.

Appearance - Clear, rich golden color capped with a finger plus of white head. Some lacing left behind. Attractive enough beer.

Smell - Herbs, maple, some nuttiness and some combination that is vaguely egg nog like. Maybe it's nutmeg. Possibly ginger. Not offensive, but all over the place.

Taste - Some maple flavor, hints of spices and ginger and again a vaguely eggnog-like taste. Root beer too. Lacking depth of flavor as everything fades pretty quick except for ginger aspects. Very sweet initially and followed up with some bitterness in the aftertaste. I think the flavor combination while sweet, isn't bad, it's a one and done type of beer for sure. Kind of reminds me of inferior quality Dare Maple cookies with some grainy bits too and swilling root beer at the same time.

Mouthfeel - Very flat, dry with medium body. Weird. The ginger and spices don't add much here as they often help articulate feel.

Overall - Another case of trying to do too many things without doing any of them particularly well. The concept is interesting, I think maple pecan or maple and spice could've worked, but the three makes it a bit of a mess. Probably only worth a shot if you really love maple.

473 mL can from the LCBO; coded Nov 27 2020 and served slightly chilled.

Pours a clear orange-amber colour, its complexion marred with countless flecks of suspended sediment. Nearly an inch of foamy white head is situated atop, falling apart steadily over the course of the next several minutes; it leaves behind a couple rings of messy lacing, as well as a tight collar and thin, filmy cap. It looks good, but the aroma is a bit much - maple sugar, mulling spices (ginger, nutmeg and especially clove oil) with nutty pecan, molasses, pie crust and something fruity that I can't quite put my finger on... sugar-coated sultana raisins, maybe? Bonus points for being unique, but right now I sure am glad that I'm not diabetic.

There's too much going on, and not all of its complementary - root beer and cherry cola at the forefront, with lots of sugary sweetness amidst spicy notes of clove, ginger and allspice. Molasses sweetness, toasted nuts and pie crust come through briefly towards the finish, along with the maple flavouring; nutty-sweet aftertaste that fades to just plain sweet, with the maple clinging to the palate well after the conclusion of each sip. Medium in body, with fairly gentle carbonation that weakly tickles the tongue; feels slick and smooth on the palate, maybe even a little slimy. This is one of those 'one serving per year' beers (i.e. how I treat most pumpkin ales).

Final Grade: 3.02, a C+. Waterloo's Maple Spiced Pecan Old Ale is almost like a car wreck - you can't help but take a look for yourself, even though you know it won't be pretty (and you might very well regret it). I kind of feel like I'm being too kind with this review, because it's not really an old ale - but that's not even the main issue, as 'old ale' is an ambiguous category to begin with. The real problem is that it's a poorly balanced, tooth-rottingly sweet spiced ale that I have no real interest in drinking again. The maple flavour in particular sort of adheres to the taste buds, lingering way too long after each sip, which is an unappealing quality for me. If you have a super-serious craft beer geek friend, give this to them as a gag gift... trust me, it'll be hilarious.

Very artificial tasting. I would highly recommend avoiding anything from Waterloo Brewing Co. They may claim that this beer is more Canadian than anything else. they are surely wrong. I don't think I've ever had a beer that tasted as fake as this particular beer. It really doesn't taste like anything except sugar; and not in a good way.

Pours gold coloured with a large fluffy head. The smell is of caramel apples. The taste, surprisingly, is very good. Nice bits of toffee, maple (my favourite), nuts and hints of pumpkin. This is a delicious fall/winter beer. Dec 5 2020