Summer Ale - Wheat With Lemon & Ginger
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 28/25. My 17th beer from the Etobicoke, Ontario brewery, and 7th for 2025. Wildly winsome to Gracie the cat...

Sept 7 2025

Appearance: Poured with a thumb of head that produced mild lace and didn't retain very well. The body is a slightly cloudy dirty blonde with signs of amble thick carbonation.

Smell: As advertised, lemon zest followed by dry ginger to a background of grainy wheat malt. It didn't need warming for it to achieve it's modest potency. I will say, I can tell by how dry the ginger is that this beer is going to be a very restrained beer.

Taste: Indeed it is, as that ginger note is what keeps this beer together, and while it's not the most aggressive chain on the other notes, it's not a delicate balance. The initial lemon note wants to express as sour, but the ginger seems to stifle it a more pithy experience. The wheat malt then seeks to express itself, but it's clear the ginger is only going to tolerate grainier aspects as you barely catch any kind of banana or citrus presence...and then suddenly, like the ginger has been hoodwinking, the lemon comes forward with a slight sour note that runs right into the ginger, now giving a lemon juice and ginger skin kind of end.

Mouthfeel: The transitioning between flavors is not good, it's like a bunch of lines on a graph snarling into one another. I've had worse, but it's all over the place. The carbonation however is solid and it brings everything to the forefront...even when it probably shouldn't. The aftertaste, is the shadow of that ginger skin with grainy malt robbed of anything sweet. I've previously commented on how some beers use a dry touch in the aftertaste to encourage drinking more, this does it with a bitterness that you are hoping another lemon hit will clean things up...but it of course doesn't.

Drinkability: I mean, it's refreshing which a beer called summer ale better well should be. It settles down well enough and the body is of course quite light. It's just off though in some way, like that ginger is weirdly overused or being bolstered in some way.

Final Thoughts: I just read the ingredients and there is barley, oats, wheat and rice in this beer, and I think that is what is bolstering the ginger and leaving with that weird skinny end. Don't get me wrong, I applaud it when a brewer wants to defy the norm and experiment with new ingredients, such as shaking up the mash bill, but I'd probably wouldn't highlight the wheat only in the name. I think this beer is an acknowledgement there is are likely legitimate reasons not use so many different grains. That's probably a bit of an unfair criticism since I'm not a brewer, but I think this mixed bill is what is throwing this beer off. Anyways, it's a serviceable lawnmower drinker, but it wouldn't be the first thing I would reach for.