Whiskey Gap
Apex Brewing

16 ounce can packaged April 22/2019, so 16 months on this one.
Pours a dark caramel amber verging brown with scant khaki head.
Nose of caramel malt, woody, vinous with notes of dark fruit and a clear bourbon whiskey aroma.
Tastes initial bourbon whiskey on caramel malt base, toffee, slightly oaky and a bit of boozy heat with a mild dark fruit and vinous punch at the back end - almost a touch of bittersweet tartness.
Medium full mouthfeel with a boozy warming sensation - the malt sweet fights the vinous note at the finish. Did not have fresh but think the age did not hurt this.

473ml can - a rather convoluted concoction brewed in ode to the now ghost(ed?) town on the Alberta/USA border, which during the latter's dim foray into Prohibition, provided all the business needs required of such a time. Made with a mixed red wine grape must, Local Bar M Whiskey from Rig Hand Distillery, and laid down on American Medium Toast new oak for 6 weeks or so. All right then.

This beer pours a clear, dark orange-brick brown colour, with three chubby fingers of puffy, rocky, and somewhat bubbly beige head, which leaves some weak spattered lace around the glass as it quickly evaporates.

It smells of grainy and crackery cereal malt, muddled homemade red wine lees, mildly rye-forward whiskey notes, a further gently smokey and caramelized woodiness, and some meek earthy, musty, and dead floral hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy toffee malt, some cherry and mixed dark fruitiness, still indeterminate musty essences, a hint of old hockey dressing room, uh, 'character', and more reserved leafy, weedy, and definitely sozzled floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly restrained in its plain-seeming frivolity, the body a solid medium weight, and generally smooth, with a touch of creamy and boozy esters sort of jockeying for palatal pole position, as it were. It finishes off-dry, the base malt still holding sway over any and all lingering guest flavour enhancers. No real sign of that 21-proof wowee sauce contingent, TBBH.

Overall - upon glancing at this one's label ('It's Alive'), I am reminded once again of the 1980s flick 'Short Circuit', which is really neither here nor there, other then as it manifests in connections in a wannabe beautiful mind. At any rate, this is a pretty hefty and engaging offering, with plenty of persistent Canadiana lore to make even the most cynical of us take a long, deserved national breath.