The Bar Towel

Finally got a bottle of this to try. This is an excellent beer, it's got clean but marked beery flavours, a medium-to-light body and bitterness and nice aftertaste with a pleasant undertone from the top yeast or warmer fermentation. There was not an iota of oxidation in it. Some beers just don't hit me right even when very fresh but this was one was good. It is not assertive in style, but is a far better alternative than, say, Rickard's Red (in my view) when a beer in that style is wanted. I also found it quite digestible despite the decent carbonation level, i.e., one "called for another". On draft this must be even better. Nice effort - not a worldbeater but fills a niche.

Gary

old faithful wrote:Finally got a bottle of this to try. This is an excellent beer, it's got clean but marked beery flavours, a medium-to-light body and bitterness and nice aftertaste with a pleasant undertone from the top yeast or warmer fermentation. There was not an iota of oxidation in it. Some beers just don't hit me right even when very fresh but this was one was good. It is not assertive in style, but is a far better alternative than, say, Rickard's Red (in my view) when a beer in that style is wanted. I also found it quite digestible despite the decent carbonation level, i.e., one "called for another". On draft this must be even better. Nice effort - not a worldbeater but fills a niche.

Gary

What I would ask is, what niche is that and how many other beers also fill that niche? My take is that it is a very generic beer. I've had hundreds just like it. It's trying to fill a niche that is chock full in Ontario...so many boring ambers and underhopped pales. In fact, it's less than most of its contemporaries because it's generally underfermented.

Anybody care to break the tie?

The niche is an English-style ale of medium-to-light palate that tastes of all-beer; is not touched by oxidation or other faults (not the samples I tried); and - not least - has a pleasant flavour.

There was an Algonquin ale somewhat like this I used to like, I now recall. But nothing in the market today in Ontario is like this: beers such as Black Oak's ales are much more highly-flavoured, for example. Upper Canada does not make an amber ale (I haven't tried the Pale Ale yet but I suspect it may show Cascade hop influence which Nickel Brook does not). Sleeman's Cream Ale and Dark are good but not as English in palate as Nickel Brook. Other Ontario amber ales I've tried (e.g. Muskoka Cream Ale) do not have as good a flavour as Nickel Brook, in my view. I like Old Credit's Amber Ale and beers such as Elora ESB but they are again more on the flavoursome side. For many purposes though I prefer a beer of less intense flavour.

I welcome other comments too, but appreciate the chance to defend my view.

I have only had it once and it wasn't under attenuated at the time. However, that being said, the beer was designed as a me too beer. I thought it did a good job at that. The owners were not in favour of my suggestion to provide something different yet attainable for most people: I had suggested a good APA. At the time Black Oak was the only brewery that offered something like that but today both Wellington and Mill Street are brewing excellent APAs so I'm not sure how well that would have fared for them.

Their lagers at the time needed a little work - being rife with diacetyl but I'm pretty sure that they have figured that one out since (because they had the solution in hand to rid themselves of it - though I haven't sampled one since that first time to confirm).

old faithful wrote:The niche is an English-style ale of medium-to-light palate that tastes of all-beer; is not touched by oxidation or other faults (not the samples I tried); and - not least - has a pleasant flavour.

I welcome other comments too, but appreciate the chance to defend my view.

Well, that's why I asked. Other beers in this category:

Cameron's Auburn
Old Credit Amber
Trafalgar Portside
Church Key Northumberland
Niagara Falls Pale
Wellington SPA, or Cream Pale or whatever they call it
Mill Street Stock Ale
Robert Simpson Confederation Ale
Trafalgar Celtic

Your tastes are definitely different than mine, but I don't see this beer as being anything remotely unique given the plethora of low IBU, English-accented pales and ambers in Ontario.

Josh, hi. I've tasted all the beers you listed and they are simply not to my taste, rarely if ever would I order them except maybe for the Confederation Ale and Portside Amber (which can be good but taste quite different to Nickel Brook, I think). I prefer the flavour and balance of the English-style Nickel Brook and that is why I feel it fills a niche. There is always room for something new if it excels in its class.

Gary