Peculier Fellows Old Ale
Blindman Brewing

 

500 ml can. Dark amber colour with thick, foamy tan head that persists longer than it took me to drink. Soft caramel and malty goodness with low carbonation. Very tasty and easy to drink. Reminded me of some very good English pub ales like London Pride and others. The only real 'weakness' is perhaps a lack of complexity, but I like beers that are straightforward and drinkable. Excellent overall.

 

Had on tap at Bo's in Red Deer, AB during Alberta Beer week. Nice to see the two best things about Central AB collaborating. Rich, heavy, malty. Aside from a slightly warming booziness, I have to agree with the reviewer below who said this is much more in the tradition of a brown ale than an old ale--though there is, perhaps, a bit of an English Bitter character here as well.

 

1L howler from the Sherbrooke Liquor store - this is a collaboration with Troubled Monk, ostensibly for Alberta Beer Week 2016. I assume from the spelling that this is also an ode to Theakston Old Peculier?

This beer pours a clear, dark red-brick brown colour, with three fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly beige head, which leaves a bit of arched natural land bridge lace around the glass as it slowly but evenly sinks away.

It smells of toasted wheat, gritty and grainy caramel malt, some oily bar-top nuttiness, muddled black and blue fruity notes, more bitter than sweet cocoa, a touch of earthy yeastiness, and some plain weedy, leafy, and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, more edgy cereal wheatiness, some plum, black currant, and bing cherry fruitiness, free-range ash, ethereal spicy yeast, fading chocolate esters, and a steady earthy, grassy, and floral hoppiness.

The bubbles are actually quite understated in their basically structural frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and mostly smooth, just a bit of pithy ashiness taking things down a peg or two here. It finishes well off-dry, the mixed malt propping up the sweetness index, while the fruit and yeast retreat like that time Homer backed into the 'Field of Dreams' cornfield.

Overall, this is a fairly tasty and engaging brown ale, albeit one with very little to recommend it as an old ale. Nothing musty, overly yeasty, damp, or boozy about it, so I have to agree with my friend's assessment when he had it the other day - 'seems like they up and mixed their 'oopsies' Brown Ale with Troubled Monk's Open Road and that's it'. The agreeable grades here are thus for its enjoyable nature, and not for any particular adherence to style.