Heroes
Southpaw Beverage Company

 

 

If Molson ever decides to discontinue Canadian, this would be a "worthy" alternative. I'm not really sure why beers like this exist. Macro taste at craft prices!. Bright gold. Stale corn aromas. Sweet. Light and crisp. Blechh!

Ordinary stuff. Pale golden yellow, no meaningful head, no lace. More malty than hoppy, but only just. Slightly sweet to taste. Like apple juice. Thin-bodied, watery. Hops seriously subdued or absent. Very anonymous brew.

Can from the lcbo for around 2.50. Tastes a little like a bud light..

Appearance: A yellow body boasting soda pop levels of carbonation, yet somehow managed to produce barly a finger of head that did not lace or retain. I'm tempted to lower the score, but the crazy level of carbonation has me intrigued.

Smell: In a word, Absent. Inoffensive bare notes of barley malt and a touch of gum oddly enough. Warming didn't help it's case here.

Taste: A very clean taste as cereal grains, barley malt with only a hint of straw and a dusting of earthy hops. While there is nothing world shattering with this lager, it's very good at presenting itself as nothing but a clean, easy lager. Certainly an after workday drinker.

Mouthfeel: Excellent points for transitioning and an excellent job at keeping the pallet clean as only the smallest notes of sweeter straw malt stick around, thus it does not cloy. The higher carbonation also aids the entire beer. Points however do get deducted for the complete lack of head.

Drinkability: Incredibly quaffable, almost surprisingly so given the high carbonation. It's certainly refreshing and easy to put back. Very light on the system and all around just an easy end of work day drinker what some Lagers should aspire to be.

Final Thoughts: I don't know if I wholly agree with the marketing of this one, but I suspect it's made for the kind of drinking you expect for Canada Day and Victoria Day. Easy summer drinking lager, which this excels at. It's not complex, it's not a flavour explosion, it's just an easy drinking quaffable lager meant to be drunk en masse but without a lot of the adjunct corn and metal taste that so many big brewers suffer from. Most BA's I don't think will find this their cup of tea, but I liked it for what it is.

 

 

 

473 ml can served cold into an Miller Genuine Draft pint glass. Purchased from the LCBO for around $2.75 CDN.

Appearance - Heroes pours a pale golden colored beer, clear with loads of carbonation and a reasonably full finger and a half of head with good retention. Not much in the way of lacing, but a good start.

Smell - Clean grainy notes, a faint metallic aroma. Not a whole lot in honesty, but nothing too offensive either. Maybe some faintly sweet corn on the farthest reaches of my nose.

Taste - Light all the way with some very mild grainy flavors. That comes through with a bit sharper flavor on the aftertaste, not really the way I want my beers to be.

Mouthfeel - Very well carbonation and gassy initially. Works with this, so the overall feel is good even with a light body.

Overall - Heroes, despite having a great label, doesn't quite live up to heroic status when it comes to beer. It's reasonable quaffable for what it is, a day on the golf course, mowing lawns and beating the summer heat, but beyond that there's not much in the way that will interest beer advocates. Maybe worth a try if you're looking for a substitute from Macro brews while on a camping trip.

Purchased at the LCBO for around $2.40 or so for a 473ml can. Served at 4deg C in a draught glass

A- Opens well and pours a 1" high white head that films out within a minute or two. Light gold colour and filtered clear

S- Not much at all. Touch of bubble gum

M- Ok at best.

O- Ok brew. Has some drinkable qualities. Not my cup of tea. Nice to try

Food Pairing

This ok at best brew went well with.......... Tacos! The brew gives me that corn sensation so tacos will go very well with this brew

Enjoy

Tallboy from the LCBO; dated Mar 29 2016 and served well-chilled.

Pours a clear, pale golden-yellow hue, fitted with an inch-high crown of foamy white head that dissipates steadily over the next couple of minutes. A frothy collar and thin, foamy cap remain in place afterwards; lacing looks good. Visually there is nothing wrong with this lager. Nothing of too much interest on the nose - pale malt, cereal grain sweetness and wet straw.

The wheels start to fall off once I take my first sip - seriously, is this a macro product in disguise? The flavour itself is unremarkable and inoffensive at best - grainy pale malts, cereal grain sweetness, and very faint notes of grassy hay and straw. It also has that damp cardboard vibe that I sometimes find in low-to-mid-level industrial-brewed lagers. Light in body, with appropriately crisp carbonation levels for this sort of beer. A basic thirst-quencher that wasn't meant to be over-analysed.

Final Grade: 3.17, a C+. The label has very little of relevance to say about Heroes Premium Lager: the first line mentions that it's a "cold-filtered premium blonde lager", but the rest of the paragraph is just a marketing spiel that says nothing about the product itself. Note that the term "craft" is not used anywhere to describe this beer, so in all fairness I can't exactly criticize them for presenting this mediocre pale lager as something that it is not - it's a bare-bones swillin' lager, and there is nothing special or memorable about it whatsoever. Reminds me of Upper Canada Lager, but unfortunately this is not a "value brand" - so even though it's tolerable enough to drink, I see no reason why I would want to pay a premium for this over the various macro alternatives. BAs who aren't here for the ticks can safely skip this lager without giving it a second thought.

 

 

 

 

I was very disappointed with this beer. To me I'd prefer to drink Canadian or Blue, which I don't normally. I actually picked up the wrong can instead of an ESB as they were both in orange cans.