Here's my BA review:
When you open an Ontario lager, expectations are usually low. The best that can be said of most of them is that they are a step up from the mediocre mass-market brands, though sometimes that is only the teensiest of steps. Now Creemore step into the fray with a new offering that blows most of its rivals out of the water.
In 2005 brewing juggernaut Molson bought the Creemore Springs brewery to gain a foothold in the 'super-premium' market. Creemore's products have always been solid, but never exceptional, and 'super-premium' only in branding. Its pils is passable, urbock okay, and premium lager decent for what it is (currently the 2nd highest rated American Pale). Fortunately, the folks at Creemore do have some creative leeway, and how they managed to persuade the Molson accountants to allow them to make a keller bier I will never know, but we should be thankful they did.
The beer pours the colour of unfiltered peach juice, which reveals amber tones and a vague outline of my wife on the other side of the glass (while its unfiltered its by no means as hazy as a wheat beer). A good two fingers of white head set up camp, and gradually diminish, but never leave the party, casting off remnants on the glass. Fruity, floral and fragrant the aroma sure is enticing me with its mixture of ripe peaches and pears and its spicy notes. Extending to the flavour, these elements craft a delightfully drinkable beer. Upfront there's a great hop bite, which reasserts itself in the finish. What struck me about the hopping is that it seemed to arrive on the scene quickly, and then finish quickly and crisply without lingering in an IPA manner, and I think this is commendable in the type of beer a lager is trying to be. The malts provide an extensive fruitiness, with peaches (again), ripe apple and a touch of berry. Flower and herb garden flavours also abound, with floral elements, mixing with a touch of earth and some spiciness. The mouthfeel is an area that I feel this beer really excels. It has far greater texture than most lagers I've come across so far, revealing a depth only matched by cask conditioning. Like its carbonation, it is medium-light and restrained, but never watery and always satisfying. You could session this until you fell over.
So it takes Creemore, backed by the financial might of Molson, to show Ontario craft brewers how to make a lager with flavour. Now where do their beers fall? In the past they've been able to say they were superior in quality and flavour to their macro rivals, but now they've been surpassed, and have fallen into the no-man's land between two camps, having neither a big marketing machine, nor a lager worthy of note. Sammy may be right, this could be a paradigm shifter.
