Alexander Keith's Saphir Hop Ale
Alexander Keith's

473ml can
5.5% ABV
Milton LCBO Outlet #1 (Milton, Ontario, Canada)
February 25, 2015
The beer pours a translucent light copper colour with a 1" bubbly tan head which lasts only a few minutes. The aroma is wet metal, weak caramel, and grass. The mouthfeel is weak to medium bodied with average carbonation. The flavour is burnt caramel, weak acidic tones, and grains. The worst of the Alexander Keith Hop series ales by far!

 

 

 

 

 

a very muddled, skunky taste. The head fades in patches and overall detracts from an otherwise nice looking beer. The smell is quite sweet, slightly skunky, and had hints of caramel malt. The taste is dominated by skunk, quite bitter despite the sweet smell, and tastes a little like toast and chemicals. Overall, certainly not my favorite beer.

Amber. Clear. Thin, fast dissipating head. Doughy, floral aroma. Faint and hard to parse. Insipid, even in comparison to other entries in this series. Malt forward with a faint tea-like note. Very low bitterness. The tangerine is there - look for the very faint sharpness in the finish. Or maybe it's the power of suggestion working on me after reading the can. Calling it subtle is being polite. Somewhat light bodied, with moderate carbonation. These Hop series beers aren't great. Along with Cascade, this is probably the worst of them. At least you could discern the different hop flavours in the Hallertau, Galaxy, and Celeia ales. This is just bland and muddled.

 

 

 

It looks good, but no aroma. Taste is pretty bland, aftertaste of macro adjuncts.

Another bland varietal from Keith's. They're just trying to fool people into thinking they're drinking something special by plastering the name of a style or the name of a type of hop onto what is really just very ordinary beer.

Not offensive. Not memorable. Next.

341 ml bottle poured into a Red Racer pint glass (sacrilege!). Like other brews in this series, a darker than expected orange amber with a finger of fluffy off-white foam.

Aroma is not bad, decidedly tea-like and botanical. Little in the way of citrus but some floral notes present. An off-note that suggests insipidly sweet stale caramel malts.

Others are not tasting tangerine in this. I am, but its a metallic, rather ersatz spin on said fruit. More tea-like notes. A rather nice botanical bitterness but nothing too showy or flamboyant. The citrus does build itself up ... A little. Some canned peach notes and a less than welcome apple flavor. Mouthfeel is notably thick for the style (and based on one's expectations of a mass-produced pale ale). Almost overly so. Hops are doing just enough to hold back a cloying sweetness. Carbonation is low key. Finish remains overly sweet and malty, although some of the tea notes do persist.

As was the case for the Galaxy single hop ale, this defied my expectations, both for good and for ill. Overly malty, insufficiently hoppy, but far superior to this brewery's bland flagship "IPA". There are certainly better vehicles for the Saphir hop, which I concur is an odd but still interesting choice. Would people really be wowed if these guys did Citra?

This beer starts out with great promise, but comes up short in so many respects. It pours and looks decent, but the first whiff of metallic soapiness is off putting. If black tea were carbonated and fermented, this might be what it would taste like. I tried, but I don't get the flowery or tangerine flavors promised on the can. Black tea, yes, but it's pretty darn disappointing.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Every beer in the Alexander Keith's Single Hop Series so far has looked malty and Saphir is no different; caramelly amber in colour, this has a sunset-like highlights and a light-pressed haze that lends visual thickness. The presence of a head, however feeble and waning it may be, is an encouraging sign given this brewer's track-record of thinning their beers with adjuncts.

As thrilled as I am that Keith's has opted to release single-hop beers, their choice of hop varieties has been somewhat perplexing. Cascade, I get. Galaxy, I love - though let's be honest, it's not exactly a household name. Hallertauer? Odd selection but ok. But Saphir? Really? It's not extremely common in pale ales or IPAs (which, again to be fair, there's no explicit claim this is an IPA).

Plus you'd think a company that operates on mass-appeal and advertising would naturally gravitate towards the distinctly citrusy and tropical varieties. While Saphir is said to provide sweet citrus (tangerine according to the brewery) aromatics there's no evidence of that here. Green, herbal plants maybe, but certainly not fruit. Frankly, I find the smell off-putting.

While I hesitate to go on record saying that Alexander Keith's has used too much malt, there's definitely more sweet caramel and dried fruit confection taste than there should be if the idea is to showcase hops (which are, I remind you, inherently bitter). The few, simple flavours I get on the palate are malt-derived. It's only a matter of time before the mouthfeel becomes cloying.

To my own surprise (and somewhat shame) I don't think anyone in the craft community has been more defensive of Keith's Single Hop Series than me - my ratings may be among the highest. But even I can't defend Saphir Hop - it's a pathetic reversion to the insipid, lowest-common-denominator ales this brewer is notorious for. My initial optimism has gradually (and now greatly) evaporated...

 

Excellent hop flavor and aroma