Imperial 69 Pilsner
Yukon Brewing

 

20oz pint at the remains of the Canada Day Yukon tap takeover at the Underground.

This beer appears a clear, glassy medium copper amber hue, with one thick finger of puffy, tightly foamy, and duly frothy ecru head, which leaves some stellar honeycombed lace around the glass as it slowly seeps away.

It smells of strongly biscuity and crackery pale malt, muddled drupe fruit notes, a further hint of lemon rind fruitiness, and prominent grassy, leafy hops. The taste is more of the same, the malt still peppy in its crackery, biscuity goodness, the warm lemon more or less outshining any pear or apple essences, the grassy, leafy, and weedy hops carrying on as ever was, and the slightest hint of metallic booze warming worming its way in.

The bubbles are light, but no pushover when it comes to questions of support, the body a stocky medium weight, the sort I'd want having my back in a bar fight, and tangentially smooth, the hops knowing where their bread is buttered here, it would seem. It finishes on a drying trend, the cracking (yes, verbatim) malt and lingering hops manifesting as such.

Like the Paddock Wood version of this style for Sherbrooke Liquor store's Beer God series, this is a stellar example of an amped-up Pils, definitely not as boozy-seeming as the norm, but still strong enough, and thoroughly capable of handling it. Good, good stuff.