Dominion Dark Lager
Vancouver Island Brewing

Looks nice, but definitely not my style. Tastes like a dark beer, but the flavours are a bit indistinguishable to me, sort of woody, maybe raisin, kind of boozy and sweet. Reminds me of a Holsten Festbock, but that's 7% - this was 5.5%. Very fresh at least.

Very dark red-brown color; nearly opaque. Low level of fine bubbles rising from the bottom of the glass. Very little head that turned into a thin skiff in half a minute. No lacing.

Very sweet dark roasted malt scent with hints of vanilla, chocolate, and coffee. Swirling the glass kicked up a little barnyard and more vanilla.

Quite sweet flavor, but no where near the level of a coke. Mix of roasted malts, vanilla, chocolate, and coffee. Mild-medium bitters show up towards the end and continue through the aftertaste. The slight barnyard in the scent doesn't show up in the taste.

Quickly froths up into pure foam. Is a little hard to drink as a result of the excessive foam. It is odd that this high carbonation level doesn't show up in the glass.

Very pleasant beer, but the intense (and somewhat sweet) flavor level means you probably won't drink more than one in a session. More of a winter beer.

 

355ml can, part of the most recent mixed 12-packs to arrive on Alberta's mighty shores.

This beer pours a clear, dark orange brick-highlighted brown colour, with two fingers of puffy, rocky, and somewhat chunky tan head, which leaves some decent foaming waterfall pattern lace around the glass as things quickly abate.

It smells of lightly roasted, gritty and grainy caramel malt, bittersweet cocoa powder, a hint of stale coffee grounds, ethereal black stone fruit, and faint earthy, musty, and floral noble hops. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, a fading free-range ashiness, some bruised pome fruity esters, weak cafe-au-lait, biscuity chocolate, and more understated leafy, earthy, and floral green hoppiness.

The carbonation is pretty meek in its quotidian frothiness, the body an adequate medium weight, and mostly smooth, with just a touch of wayward son char perhaps not playing nice with my innocent palate here. It finishes off-dry, the fruity notes exhibiting the bigglyest [sic] lingering luster.

Overall - this is a so-so version of the style, as the admittedly plentiful flavour components just don't seem to gel, or duly integrate, as such. Easy enough to put back, I suppose, but, as noted, there's something a bit, oh, I don't know, uneven about this whole thing. Ah well, next!