Omnipollo Pro Dro Mus

"Graham Cracker Chocolate Chunk Caramel Bar Stout". 

Unsettling. 

Pours like backyard maple syrup. Blacker than a veteran's humour. The head is darker than many "dark" beers. Hold the phone. 10.5% alc. /vol. 

Wait. 

What? This beer is plainly psychotic. 

Who combines "Chocolate Chunk Caramel" with decimal of ethanol? 

Who?

The nose is invited with the comforting aromas of your grandmother's kitchen at Thanksgiving. The syrup treachery of the liquid itself invites sipping. Then, three sips in you discover that gulping tastes better. Three and a half sips in your heart sinks as the sinister burn of the booze warms the inner lining of the esophagus and your imagination convinces you that the mad brewer is giggling maniacally... Somewhere. 

With a sinking feeling you're convinced that you are hurting yourself.

Overall it is traumatic.

52/100

"The Matador Version 2.0 El Toro Bravo" Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery

Right off the hop (pun incidental) the talented primates in Barrie who somehow manage to contain their rampant creativities to occasionally cram some beer into some bottles and put labels on them, impressively manage to do so with exceeding success. 

FREE BONUS TIP: If you spot a colorful box that could contain a wine bottle emblazoned with the words "Flying Monkeys", buy it. Don't hesitate. You need the adventure.

This is one of these magical sort of boxed bottles. El Toro Bravo is presented to the consumer housed within a shiny cardboard box flanked by a brilliant reproduction of a "toro" apparently in oil on canvas by artist Bruce Chalmers. As is par for the Monkeys boxed beer offerings there is a goodly amount of reading available should one be so inclined. 

The beer itself is typically atypical. A rye brew sporting a 10.1% endowment of yeasty metabolite aged on a bed of spanish cedar. Who comes up with this madness? 

It's dark. But not black by any means. More mahogany than brown. The flavors are cataclysmic. Wood, leather, Cuban cigars, poetry, cedar, motorcycles in the rain, evergreen needles, solid brass fixtures, adventure, debauchery, tall tales, toffee and fond memories crowd the palate. If Hemingway himself were reincarnated as a craft beer here he is. Best consumed late in the evening with good friends, lest you become inclined to run with bulls or attempt some equally hazardous game meant for a younger man.

Brilliant execution. Madness or genius? 

100/100

Wellington Brewery "Frost Quake"

On a bright and positively frigid Sunday afternoon when the thermometer at my house hadn't crept above -23 degrees Celsius I felt a craving for a living room brewery tour. So bravely pulling on a pair of jeans and some big black winter boots I drove the frosty five minutes to my local liquor purveyor. A digital sign on a sunny hill top along the way displays a hopeful "-18.0C". It's cold out.

The name "Frost Quake" in large letters seems to strike a contradiction in my imagination. Today is the perfect day for a real frost quake, temperatures tonight are predicted to drop closer to -30C, and yet as a beer named for an icy cold weather phenomenon, it seems like something one might seek on a hot summer day. The large, dark, swing top bottle seals the deal. 

Once again safe and warm at home I pop the big brown bottle of "bourbon barrel aged barley wine" and pour a modest 5 ounces into a snifter. 

Phenomenal stuff. Perfect for the weather. Deep chestnut brown. Ever so slightly syrupy, but sweet and molassesy enough. The alcohol content is burly at 9.8% but it's well camouflaged by the galloping malt. The barrel aging has brought the elements of this barley wine together like a symphony of flavor and aroma. 

I'd happily recommend this to a friend. In fact I already have! Enjoy with someone special to turn a icy cold day into a warm celebration of masterful brewing.

La Trappe Tripel

Before even taking the top off of this tall Dutch beauty I'm struck by what this bottle involves. The contents were brewed by men of silence in the Netherlands before being sent across an ocean and delivered to a shop in my small town in rural Ontario. And it's still remarkably fresh. The only judgment I'm willing to pass on these glorious circumstances is that this arrangement cannot go on indefinitely. We have to break some serious new ground in how we operate as a global society for this level of luxury to persist. Meanwhile, there is beer of remarkable taste to be had so indulge!

La Trappe is a sample of what is becoming my favorite style. Trappist ales are powerfully alcoholic, but more than that they present some of the most nuanced palates and exquisite crafting available in the beer world. There must be something of value in being able to focus on a task in silence.

Cloudy, voluptuous, yeasty. Try it. If you don't love it send me your leftovers.

97/100

County Durham Signature Ale

"British Style" the label confidently proclaims. I've been hurt before. The full bottle shrink-wrap label is a mite tacky. One of the many things I loved about the UK during a trip several years ago was the local ale. Not overly gaseous, full flavored without being brash. Let's see what Durham County Brewing Company means when they say "British Style".

Tart to the point of nearly sour, but softly effervescent and refreshing. The head and the color have an air of high breeding about them. In the end I'd have to agree, British Style is what this is, not quite the genuine article but not Coors Light either.

77/100

Unibroue Grand Réserve 17

Let's make something clear. Adorning a bottle with things like "Belgian", "Trappist Monks", "French Oak", and "Platinum Medal Winner" doesn't tend to leave much to the imagination. Nonetheless my imaginations while toting my new purchase home were full of sugar plums. Lees cloudy. Deep auburn. Molasses scented. A full tenth of mind altering alcohol. This beer might normally and properly be labelled "barley wine" but then the imagination would be as idle as the Canadian Senate. Quebeckers it seems brew beer with the same passion as they apply to college football. Google Laval Rouge et Or. Twelve years in existence. Eight national championships. Beer enthusiasts get in the game, this one is lovely. Ab initio enthusiasts exercise caution and prepare to have your expectations reset. 99/100

Rogue Dead Guy Ale

So after much wringing of hands and what can only be described as a long and agonizing absence for you all, the big beer poobah is back. My apologies. 

The claim that sold me on this bottle (visible in the label shot) of course being "It Glows". Moments after spilling beer all over myself in the dark, it occurred to me that perhaps it was referring to not the beer but the bottle. Slowly but surely I do sometimes get somewhere. (to borrow from the eloquently confident style of Rob Ford)

So yeah the label glows. Kinda, sorta. Big whoop. How's the beer? Good dose of alcohol. Six and a half percent. Cloudy. Ruddy brown. Bitter for the Coors Light confederate. A sniff of yeast. Bit of a wallflower in the micro-brew aisle, one quickly gets a good idea why Mom put this little number in a glow in the dark dress before sending her to the school social. Not a life changing beer by any measure. Six and half points for the C2H6O. Half a point for the "glowing label". Carry the one, multiply by a hundred, seventy. 70/100