With its Vonnegut inspired can art, LDV Coffee & Vanilla deftly accentuates the existing notes of roast and chocolate by fleshing out those profiles, resulting in a winter sipper perfect for those long December nights.
Deep Red leaning past the caramel aroma of traditional versions and into toasted grain, coffee and sweet sugar cereal. Quite a soft texture, with a small amount of slickness on the palate. The final impression is of toast, and it becomes slightly thin at the swallow.
Grassy with a small amount of drying wildflowers and a barley sugar character somewhere down towards buckwheat honey. A small amount of retro-nasal stone fruit appears alongside a lingering chrysanthemum bitterness in this 4.8% quencher from New Brunswick.
One of Ontario’s oldest Christmas seasonals, Nutcracker Porter features cinnamon and nutmeg above its dried fruit, chocolate and roast malt body, creating a festive waft of yuletide cheer. Nutcracker seems to maintain its quality as time passes.
A well-balanced set of esters and phenols on the nose, with pepper, banana, bubblegum and clove above a light, crackery body. Lemon pith on the palate presents a well-judged touch of bitterness. An authentic as possible Belgian Enkel out of Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
Designed in partnership with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, this features less roast than fruit on the aroma with red and black licorice and sweet apple and concord grape esters amid dried fruit. English hop bite on the palate and at the finish makes this 6.8% brawler an old school English porter.
The temptation with New England IPA is to treat the flavour profile as a sledgehammer. In the case of Port Credit, Ontario’s Stonehooker, a light touch is key. Pineapple, dragon fruit, lychee and papaya on the nose with a light eucalyptus touch revealed on a larger gulp.