A lovely, thirst-slaking ale crafted by brewmaster Brad Wright, who cut his teeth at Ontario breweries Walkerville Brewing Company and Beau’s All-Natural Brewing. No Nonsense is an easy-drinking lagered ale with a bit more complexity than other lighter brews. With a clear, bubbly, pale golden body, there’s pleasantly bitter hop bite coupled with a grainy sweetness on the palate. A great go-to beer to sip alongside summertime grill classics, like cheeseburgers, veggie dogs and Polish sausages.
A British IPA with an fruity hop kick. On the nose expect a touch of caramel malts with some tropical fruit notes. With a full, creamy body, the flavour is a lovely balance between soft biscuit malts and fruity wine gums. A smooth, easy finish to this IPA, not a bitter punch in the face like some of its North American counterparts. An effortless match to West Indian-style chicken curry.
It’s an amped-up Belgian witbier with hops and a firm, long, bitter finish. This creamy brew is golden-hued with a fluffy white head, banana and light spice on the nose, flavours of light orange, and some black-pepper sweetness in the background. Perfect for pairing with fruit-forward summer salads and spicy chicken curry burgers.
This Austrian offering is a classic radler. Bubbly and lemon-forward, a bit like Sprite, with fresh, clean flavours of white grapefruit and light, crackery malt. Its racy lemon acidity makes it totally crushable. A crowd pleaser; keep a handful on ice at any backyard barbecue and it’ll be the first thing to go.
One of Canada’s most prestigious farmhouse-style breweries, Brasserie Dunham, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, is run by Éloi Deit, who likes to hop up his rustic ales. The saison yeast culture has steadily evolved since it opened in 2011. Deit has a “yeast guy” collecting interesting wild yeasts from the Dunham region. That, and interesting souring bacterias, are regularly introduced to the house culture to add complexity. No Tahoma is a farmhouse pale ale hopped with 7 citrusy and floral varietals. The result is a spritzy, 5.9% alcohol ale with notes of lime, starfruit, sage and white pepper and a dry, lightly bitter finish. Try one fresh, then cellar a few to see how the wild yeast characters develop over 6 months to a year.
As the sun shines hotter, brewers are mixing orange, lemon, grape or even passion fruit juice with their lagers or wheat beers. The name radler is short for radlermass, a German word meaning “cyclist litre.” Invented in 1922 to quench the thirst of Munich cyclists, this half-juice, half-beer mix is citrusy and refreshing. Parallel 49’s take is a mix of 70% of the Vancouver brewery’s Munich Helles lager, and 30% red grapefruit juice. It’s the “beeriest” of them all with tons of bittersweet grapefruit juice flavour, baguette and a hint of grassy hops that help to dry out the swallow.
Ben Couillard, 39-year-old brewmaster and owner of Auval, left his brewing gig at Pit Caribou to start a true farmhouse brewery in the Gaspé in 2015. His mission is to brew rustic ales that have a sense of place, and Couillard uses as many local ingredients as his beekeeper business partner (the farmer half of the equation) can grow. Wild-fermented fruit beers are brewed with a mixed yeast culture that he’s isolated from wildflowers and fermented on raspberries, aronia, blackcurrants or cherries grown on the farm’s orchards. Aronia pours hazy pink and bursts with wild and funky aromatics and light berries. Tart, very dry, highly effervescent.