Imperial Spiced Ale
Canvas Brewing Co.

Appearance: Poured with only a pinkie worth of head but it did retain quite well. Nothing really in the way of lace. The body is a dark amber that's absolutely swimming with off putting sandy particulate. Carbonation looks fairly strong from the body, but also has the effect of churning the particulate.

Smell: Cinnamon and allspice dominate the nose with an ample hit of vanilla and caramel malt. This honestly reminds me of a cold version of when I mixed English Toffee and French Vanilla from Tim Hortons together, only with some cinnamon thrown in. Also like that experience this comes across as way too sweet for my taste today.

Taste: Starts of us off with toffee and allspice notes that builds to a sickening sweetness as vanilla comes into the mix and the cinnamon rounds things off. It strikes me they are very much going for a spice rum Captain Morgan kind of thing, but here it doesn't quite work as the malt and lower alcohol can't reign it in well enough.

Mouthfeel: The head being a bit small is what it is, because thankfully it still offers a bit of a foamy carbonation sensation which tries but sadly can't distract you from the sweetness. Transitioning is ok, but that sweet Vanilla, Carmel Malt note clings and lingers for far too long in the aftertaste.

Drinkability: I'll give it this though, you do not detect that 9% at all. Medium bodied, but far to sweet to be used as anything but a dessert drink or maybe a sweeter baking ingredient, so refreshing it isn't. It also doesn't quite calm down in my gut as well as I'd like it to.

Final Thoughts: If you like Spiced Rum, you may like this beer. For me though, this beer feels like it needs to be cut with something to reign in the sweetness. Maybe some lime? Maybe some bitters? I don't know and I don't really want to experiment here. I didn't find it that enjoyable, so I would pass on this one.