10 Reviews

A pretty wide array of beers here.  Lots of Belgian styles, some I enjoyed, some I did not.  Highlights here were: Great Lakes Saison Du Pump (a pumpkin infused saison), which you can always buy tomorrow for Halloween; Brasseries Dunham IPA Belge, which I found to be painfully drinkable and refreshing yet complex enough to keep me captivated until the end of the bottle; and lastly (but by no means least) the absolutely massive Charlevoix Dominus Vobiscum Hibernus, the Belgian Dark Strong ale that just keeps giving up layers of flavor (but be warned it's a beastly 9.5% ABV, a hell of a sipper).

Charlevoix Dominus Vobiscum Hibernus
750 mL bottle. Pours dark mahogany with a thick tan cap of head. Solid aromas of dark fruit, rum, banana, medium treacle and oak. Sweet but well balanced by moderate carbonation, hop bitterness and alcohol bite. Dangerously smooth, full bodied and deep. Finishes with hops and spices. Delicious.

Spirit Tree Draught Cider
341 mL bottle. Pours light golden straw with a thin white cap that goes quick. Aromas of apple, honeysuckle and farmy funk. Mildly sweet but still quite dry, with low to moderate carbonation and an above average body for a cider. Love it for that yeast note, a complexity not commonly found in Ontario ciders.

M'Anis 7.3
500 mL bottle. Pours a deep honey color with a short lived white head. Notes of bread, toffee, nut, apricot and a hint of roast. A touch sweet offset by lively carbonation and a warming boozy bite. Moderate body with a sticky malty finish. Not bad, but not for me.

Great Lakes Brewing Saison Du Pump
650 mL bottle. Pours a cloudy straw with an obnoxiously lacy head of white. Aromas of pumpkin, nutmeg, banana, bubblegum and noble hop. Pleasantly palate coating, but bone dry with full carbonation and a nice bitter finish. Crisp and delicious!

Unibroue Noire de Chambly
750 mL bottle. Pours cola with a beige cap of tight bubbles. Aromas of prune, spice, a hint of roast and Unibroue house yeast. Moderate body and carbonation with a dry yeasty finish and subtle hop bitterness. Not overly impressed, but well made.

Uncommon Brewers Siamese Twin
473 mL can. Pours dark amber brown with zero head. Leaves no lacing. Caramel and spice aromas, with subtle notes of lime leaf and lemongrass. Bready caramel malt and slight hop bitterness on the finish. Sweet and rich, sticky, coating mouthfeel, moderate carbonation and a bit of booze. Too sweet for me, would like to see more of that citrus zip. Good idea, bad execution?

Brasseries Dunham IPA Belge
750 mL bottle. Pours a murky green tinged orange hue with a huge rocky white head that lasts and laces. Aromas of lemony hop, coriander spice, cotton candy and herb. Dry and perfume-like with a floral finish. Moderate body with high carbonation. Strangely well balanced. Tasty, and not what I expected.

Wellington Iron Duke Saison
Cask. Pours dark mahogany with a tan fluff. Aromas of bubblegum, cherry cough drop, spice, slight roast and yeasty funk. Dry, with a lightly bitter finish. Slightly medicinal with a bit of alcohol bite.

Northwinds Corduroy Rye IPA
Draught. Pours hazy copper with a lacy white head. Aromas of herbaceous hop, rye spice, mint and caramel malt. Dry for the style, with a lightly spiced finish. Moderate body and carbonation. Creamy mouthfeel, well balanced.

Lake of Bays Top Shelf Lager
473 mL can. Pours golden with a nice white head that leaves no trace. Cereal and biscuit grain flavor with a hint of toffee. Subtly sweet with a hint of hop bitterness. Full on the palate with a round mouth feel and moderate carbonation. Reminds me more of a Vienna lager than an American one. Not bad at all.

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Highland Park 1990

THE SCOTCH: Distilled in 1990 and packaged in 2010, this fine whisky is 20 years old.  Marked 'Created Exclusively For Global Travel Retail', I picked this up on a trip to the US.  Highland Park is the only distillery on the Isle of Orkney and are known for their scrupulous attention to quality. 40% ABV.

THE POUR: Golden yellow, average consistency.

THE NOSE: Banana, vanilla, clove, oak, honey, a hint of mineral.

THE SIP: Mellow and smooth, candied orange sweetness, round oaky mouthfeel and subtle peating.

OVERALL: An easygoing Scotch, superbly round and balanced.  Gently warming.  Ideally enjoyed neat, I found water ruined this one.

Cask Days 2013

There are few things that get beer geeks more excited than a cask of real ale.  Over 200 Casks of real ale all in one location is one of those things.  Cask Days is an annual (this year marks the ninth), two day celebration of real ale, and the largest of it's kind in Canada.

'Real Ale' is unpasteurized, unfiltered, living (there's plenty of yeast still in suspension), beer that has been conditioned in a cask  (formerly barrels, now likely to be a stainless steel vessel called a pin or a firkin) and served without the aid of carbon dioxide or nitrogen.  The beer is cloudy with yeast haze, served at cellar temperature (around 10C) and very lightly carbonated.  To the average consumer, this seems like a scam and a waste of delicious beer.  To those in the know, cask ale offers an opportunity to really showcase the flavour of a beer.  Only very well made beers can be served unpasteurized and unfiltered, thus setting a benchmark for how they are made.  There is no carbonation to disguise off flavours and the warmer serving temperature awakens aromatics normally muted when cold.

This years Cask Days was held at Evergreen Brickworks, an old quarry located in North York.  The outdoor setting created the perfect environment to keep over 200 unrefrigerated beers at serving temperature.  Food was offered up by Toronto favourites such as The Ceili Cottage, Bar Isabel, Tracy Winkworth, Pig Iron Coffee and Parts & Labour.  This year featured over 230 firkin of beer from all over Canada and the U.K.

Here's the list of what I got into, along with notes for the beers that I can recall clearly.

Amsterdam Highborn Farmhand (Saison with Brett and Noble Hops)
Cloudy straw colour.  Nice brett notes, musty and woody alongside spicy, herbal hop

Daniel Thwaites Lancaster Bomber (ESB)

Kensington Brewing Company Tragically Hopped (IPA)
A nice cask style IPA, on the lighter side of things, well balanced with pine and citrus hops.

Les Trois Mousquetaires Oud Bruin (Flanders Brown Ale)

Spirit Tree Dry Hopped (Dry Hopped Heritage Apple Cider)
Similar to their original cider, but with hints of citrus and woody hop,

Les Vergers de la Colline Rouge Dolgo (Crab Apple Cider)
Very tart, with a nice pink tinge.  Definitely tastes like crab apples.  Refreshing.

Snowman Make Like a Tree and Leaf (Gluten Free Maple Porter)
Spicy non-barley malt notes, a hint of maple sweetness and a bit of roast.

Amsterdam X Great Lakes Brewery Maverick and Gose with Raspberry (Raspberry Gose)
Tainted with diacetyl.  The only bad beer I consumed at the festival.  A shame, I had my eye on this one before we even got there.

Bellwoods Brettal Head with Lemon (All-Brett Wheat Ale with Lemon)
Very murky lemonade colour.  Slightly funky/musty with various layers of lemony-ness.  Smelled very much like Moroccan style preserved lemons.  Creamy mouth feel.  Probably my favourite taste of the afternoon.

Muskoka Masala ChaIPA (Chai Spiced IPA)
A well balanced IPA that finished hoppy and faded to spice notes, not by any means overpowering.

Half Pints Drunken Bunny (Chocolate Milk Stout)

Sawdust City X Nickelbrook X Nogne O Test Pilot (Eisbock)
A style you don't see much in Canada.  Beer that has been concentrated by slowly freezing and removing the water (which freezes before the alcohol). Surprisingly clear for a cask beer.  Notes of candied fruit and pure malt.  Warning, this one came in at 14% ABV.  

Sawdust City A Nun Rolling Down a Hill (Dry Stout)
Chocolate and roast, a nice dark reddish-black.

F&M Sour-Y About Last Year (Sour Bock)

Niagara Oast House Brewers Mild R'Oast (English Mild)
As close as one can get to coffee beer without actually having coffee in it.  Full bodied for the meagre 3.8% ABV.  Cask style at its finest.

Thornbridge Brewery Jaipur (IPA)

IPA Challenge Beer 2 (IPA)
Weirdly balanced.  Citrus and tropical fruit, caramel malt.  Didn't do it for me at all.

IPA Challenge Beer 3 (IPA)
Very light color, finite notes of yeast spice and Noble hop.  Got my vote.

IPA Challenge Beer 4 (IPA)
Full bodied and tropical with a dark and malty back bone.  Quite filling.

I discovered that I don't much care for sour beers on cask.  Strange that two of my favourite styles of beer don't come together to make a style I like even more.  The bracing acidity of sours is lifted and lightened by the carbonation, creating more of a contrast;  on cask these beers seem heavy and unlively.

All in all the festival was a great time!  Thanks again to Keep6 Imports/Bar Volo/Cask Days for throwing the event, I look forward to next year!  For more information please visit www.caskdays.com