No Hockey, Especially Bitter
Brewsters Brewing Company & Restaurant - Eleventh Avenue

 

A 14oz industry pint at the Oliver Square Brewsters. A cute, and until yesterday, timely and relevant name for a seasonal beer made anywhere in this country.

This beer appears a slightly hazy medium copper amber hue, with one thick, almost overflowing finger of foamy, bubbly tan head, which leaves some rocky shoreline lace around the glass as it duly recedes.

It smells very faintly of grainy malt, hard water minerality, and weak floral hops. The taste is much more robust - a quickly evolving sweet biscuit, caramel maltiness, mildly overripe orchard fruit, and peppy floral, lemongrass hops.

The bubbles are adequately engaging, the body a decent medium weight, and smooth, but with that pleasant hop snag caveat. It finishes off-dry, the malt gaining an edgy fruit character to go with the other lingering bready notes, and the hops nestling in like they expect this to be a long haul.

A rather enjoyable, veritable ESB - the biscuity, fruity, and bitter essences are hard to deny. My only niggling complaint is that this could do with an extra few dashes of ABV - put the extra in the 'extra', y'know? On the other hand, we may have a sessionable strong bitter on our hands here.