Old Fahrt Altbier
Brauerei Fahr

 

1L howler from the Sherbrooke sto' likka hoes. I'm assuming that this one is also being brewed by the fine folks at Tool Shed in Calgary, until the brewer here gets his bricks and mortar sorted out down there in the real oil country #albertahistory.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, medium copper amber colour, with two zaftig fingers of puffy, billowy, and cushion-esque beige head, which leaves some splattered paintball pellet lace around the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of lightly toasted and grainy pale malt, earthy yeast, an ethereal dark orchard fruitiness, some muddled oily nutty notes, and very tame leafy, weedy, and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is bready and crackery caramel malt, a growing cream of wheat thing, mixed banana, apple, and citrus fruit esters, a hint of lazy yeastiness, and more gentle earthy, leafy, and sort of herbal hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly understated in its timidly rendered frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and mostly smooth, just a touch of ashiness the minor scratch in the newly-detailed paint job, as such. It finishes off-dry, the mixed malt and kind of suppressed-seeming fruitiness winning the day.

Overall, this comes across as a very easy-drinking, Teutonic stab into the very idea of analyzing every last aspect of the beer sitting in front of you. Simple, sure, but well-made, tasty, and more worthy of bierhall imbibement than my current situation portends.