Karma Simcoe
Great Lakes Brewery

At my lady Pamela's house; canned and chilled, 473mL in a pint glass. From my favourite LCBO at Tecumseh Mall in nearby Windsor. Canned May 3/25. My 24th beer from the Etobicoke, Ontario brewery, and 7th for 2026. Ridiculously admired by Sundae the cat...

 

Good simcoe hops but found execution a bit lacking. Others who took small samples really liked the flavour, and didn't mind the dry patch. Hop aroma.

 

 

 

 

Appearance - Pours a copper gold with four fingers of frothy white head.

Smell - earthy, citrus, leafy, piney, floral, and weedy hops, light pine resin, grapefruit and citrus peel, bready malts, caramel, and earthy yeast.

Taste - bold earthy, citrus, leafy, floral, weedy, and piney hops upfront. The moderate notes of pine resin, grapefruit and citrus peel come through next. The bready malts, caramel, and earthy yeast round out the brew.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with moderate carbonation. Finishes sticky with the hops, malts, pine resin and grapefruit peel lingering.

Overall - Another impressive IPA from Great Lakes. This is definitely on the sessionable front as this one delivers on all fronts.

Pours a hazy golden orange (I always aspirate the yeast) with a nice finger and a half head of fluffy white. It slowly recedes into a thick fluffy cap with enormous lacing

Pine, citrus, earthy woodsy smells abound. Fresh dew on a forest floor kind of earthy, rather than a dense or woody one. Slightly fresh general fruit aromas and mild malts.

A great first sip, malts come through more here as well as the light astringency from both the oats abs the hops. Wonderfully bodied beer and the ABV% plays a nice role, inflecting an enjoyable spin on all the flavours, giving them a bit more heft. This works well on the grapefruit, citrus, and mildly piney notes as well as the slightly astringent, slightly slick body. The pale malt notes and mild breadiness is slightly more heavy than on the nose. They do not lie, Simcoe dominates the flavour here, the piney citrusy and mild fruity towards the berry/tropics end is great. Balanced by the great body of malt and oats, this is unbelievably balanced. This IPA will stick out in the ocean of millions, without a doubt.

Medium-light bodied, moderation carbonation of fine bubbles that is ever so slightly prickly on the tongue but mostly creamy and slick towards the back end. Pleasant mildly bitter finish, the malts are present here as well as hints of piney, citrus peel.

Little else to say — this is a phenomenal beer. It hits every mark you want from an IPA, and better than that, unlike many other IPAs that ‘specialize’ in one hop type, Karma Simcoe really builds the beer to highlight its qualities. Most brands just add a bunch of hops or just spike up the ABV. This beer builds around the hop and creates a phenomenal beer in the process. I love it!

 

473 mL can from the LCBO; dated Mar 14 2022 and served slightly chilled. Karma Citra remains one of my favourite Canadian IPAs of all time, so I'm excited to see if this lives up to the very high standard set by its elder sibling, and by GLB beers in general.

Pours foggy and effervescent, its body golden yellow-hued and crowned with nearly an inch of rocky, foamy white head with some staying power: even after ten minutes, there's still a quarter-inch cap of smooth, creamy suds in place, not to mention a fabulous curtain of lace - visually delightful. Grapefruit and pine on the nose, backed by breadiness and a mixture of berries, tropical & stone fruits. Basically on par with KC thus far.

This is such a well-crafted IPA that I spoiled myself by simply enjoying the first half of the glass before I bothered typing anything here. There are some bready, wheaty pale malts in the background, but Simcoe is what dominates - grapefruit, passion fruit and pine, with hints of mango, mandarin orange and stone fruit. Earthier towards the finish, with some resiny, piney bitterness continuing into a fruity aftertaste. Medium in body, with moderate carbonation that lends some prickliness to this brew's otherwise smooth, soft, slightly frothy mouthfeel. Unbelievably drinkable - I could easily enjoy a few of these in a row.

Final Grade: 4.41, an outstanding A grade. GLB practically never leaves me disappointed, and Karma Simcoe is certainly not an exception - it's easily one of the best new IPAs I've tried in 2022. Simcoe has more of that piney, earthy, classic American IPA bitterness that I all too often miss these days, but balances it out with a nearly equivalent punch of fruity, citrusy notes. It's a hophead's delight, and the sort of brew I'd always buy in multiples. Forced to pick one or the other, I'd have to rank this a teensy bit below Citra, but they're honestly so close in terms of quality that I'd just stick with whichever one is more fresh.

Pours ruddy orange with a gigantic, everlasting head. The glass is coated with chunks of lace on the way down. Classic fruity, tropical, pineapple, mango Simcoe hops in the nose. A bit of bready pale malts in the back. The taste is a bombardment of juicy Simcoe hops mixed with a solid malt ballast in the background. Floral hop notes in the back give lots of extra complexity. The mouthfeel is full bodied with high carbonation. High bitterness in the infinitely long finish.

Another benchmark hop bomb from this legendary brewery. A must try.

Look: Pours a beautiful shade of rich golden amber, not red enough to be called amber, not yellow enough to be considered gold. The head is a rocky yellowy white 1 1/4 fingers. The head is still a good 1/3 of dense cover after 5 minutes.

Smell: Sweet and tropical fruity. Papaya, mango, pineapple, cantaloupe. Hints of bubblegum or Popeye candy sticks. The smell draws you in. One of the nicest smelling beers I have had in sometime.

Taste: More earthy than expected given the smell. Dank floral front end, that opens up with a pronouced yet still mild piney bitterness around the middle of the sip. Sharp grapefruit notes on the back end.

Feel: Medium bodied with a well balenced carbonation. Leaves off with a prickly oily bitterness when drank too cold. As the beer warms up this isn't as pronounced.

Great Lakes Brewery remains on of my top 5 Ontario brewers. This isn't close to their strongest IPA selection, but even there B game is most other brewers A game. This earns a B+

Sept 8 2024

A-Poured a clear golden yellow with a creamy white head
S-Much more fruit than I expected from Simcoe. Notes of ripe cantaloupe, mango and plum
M-Low end carbonation with a resinous body and juicy mouthfeel
T-Sweet upfront with an oh so smooth bitterness. Tropical fruit flavours like pineapple and mango swim around to end up in a very mellow orange pith aftertaste
O-

473 ml can served cold into a pint glass. Caned March 14, 2022. LCBO purchase for $3.45 CDN,

Appearance - Semi hazy rich golden color with a finger or so of white head. Lots of bubbles, good looking beer. Decent staying power.

Smell - Floral, with some subtle citrus fruit that leans sweeter, pineapple is very present with some assorted orange and melon. A touch of grapefruit in there at the end. Fairly sweet smelling.

Taste - Semi-sweet with lots of floral flavors, plenty of citrus with pineapple and orange then transitioning to grapefruit. Sweet, then moves to medium bitter. just a hint of boozy sharpness at the end. Since I kept going back to this over and over after the fact and taste is king, I've bumped this up just a bit.

Mouthfeel - Medium-bodied, modest carbonation, juicy and super crushable. This goes down easy.

Overall - Excellent brew by one of the best in Canada. Very good flavor, great feel, very reasonably priced. I'm guessing this is seasonal, but would love to see it be a regular seasonal rather than a one-off.

 

Essentially clear golden pour with two plus fingers of just slightly off white puffy, fine bubbly head.
Aroma of slightly floral, piney hops; notes of citrus and mildly earthy dankness; grainy cereal malt.
Taste is again hop forward - pine, grapefruit - floral note, dank and spicy hop bitterness with just enough grainy malt sweetness to balance.
Solid medium, pushing full, mouthfeel with decent carbonation and a smooth spicy bittersweet finish.
This is an IPA that IPAs want to be.