This, however, is perhaps the logical conclusion of the contract brewing movement. A woodsman's beard overflows over the front of the can with a tiny placard (adorned with tiny maple leafs!) reading "Wild Apple Ale." The back features a story about "crazy beard" hunting for the ambrosia of perfect apples growing in a northern orchard and brewing, only for the hardiest of those in his company, a single barrel of ale to reward their efforts.
Great! So an ale then? Or what about those apples...? Wait, it said it was wild! What about that barrel... do they mean a real barrel? Perhaps a Graff, even?!
Rolling to the least adorned part of the can shows the nasty truth... "carbonated water, malt, sugar, citric acid, maltic acid, natural flavour, sodium citrate, neutral spirit, caramel." While in the LCBO this resides along side the growing cohort of big brand ciders, it's not a cider... or an ale... or wild... it's a fizzy alcopop. In small text the can reads "alcoholic malt beverage."
It tastes about as the ingredients would let you think... something like a more caramel-forward Jones "Green Apple Soda" with a splash of vodka. There is no aspartame, but it has some of that chemical finish associated with it. I have no idea the final sugar count in the product, but it would seem to be considerable. I imagine a night of several of these would make their poor underage target demo ill in several ways.
It is manufactured in Oakville by Sage Mixology who have the same street address as the black hole of Ontario beer, Trafalgar Brewery/Meadery/Distillery. I suppose this is a natural evolution as Trafalgar evolves into a distillery. With so much extra unaged spirits lying around, they can be bathed in chemicals and sold off as this industrial waste.
I suppose it's also fitting that Trafalgar is involved in the logical conclusion of contract brewing. All marketing flare (they even have the great Gery Dee signed on!) around a waste by-product of a fledgling distillery and a soda pop. To be fair, had they called this a hard soda I'd never be writing this, but using "wild apple ale" to conflate it with either beer or cider... well, that's not crazy, that's just sleazy.
