I think that part of what attracts me to beer is the intimacy. Its primary ingredients are few: barley, hops, water, yeast. And after tasting those flavors over and over, in all their iterations, you develop a relationship with them. Each new beer offers something surprising, yet expectant; the opportunity to fall in love all over again.
That intimacy is at the heart of Cask Days. Held annually at Bar Volo, Cask Days is a sampling event featuring cask ales from across Canada. Also known as ‘real ale’ amongst purists, cask ale is unfiltered, unpasteurized, naturally carbonated beer conditioned in and served from a cask. But that’s putting it concretely. Cask ale is about more than mechanics. It’s about possibility. Cask ale has a limited shelf life, only a few days of peak flavor. Consequently, since it is brewed in small quantities, there is room to play with flavor, to experiment and develop the personalities that make craft beer great. Full of those expectations, and feeling prepared to meet them, I bought my $15 ticket for the second of nine sessions.
Almost immediately after walking in to the dimly lit, buzzing atmosphere of what is usually one of my favorite places to be, I felt out of my depth. The crowd was much older, and much more male than I’ve come to expect. This was Bar Volo filtered down to the serious beer drinkers: lifelong beer nerds. Men in blue and khaki who say things like “You give Charlie a milk stout and you can treat him like a farm animal.”
But I rallied. My love for beer is new, but genuine, and despite the odd curious glance in my direction, I felt I belonged there. So I confidently handed the door girl my cash and bought ten $2 tickets (for ten ¼ pints that must be drunk in a single three hour session), a commemorative glass ($5), a complimentary and well- designed Festival Guide and walked straight to the first row of casks.
My first conquest was Night Marzen, a seasonal Oktoberfest Lager from Beau’s All Natural in eastern Ontario. I don’t remember how that tasted. My boyfriend accidentally deleted the notes for this beer from his iPhone while attempting to end a call. Back to pen and paper for me.
My next attempt was the Strato Black IPA from Benelux in Quebec. I’d never heard of a black IPA, so I was excited; so excited that I took my first swig of my blacker than black pour without even smelling it first. That was a mistake. As I forced the mouthful down, I realized that ‘black’ is a euphemism for smoked beer.
I’m going to come right out and say this: I hate smoked beer. Not only does burnt malt overpower every other flavor in the beer – and not in a good way – but, most of the time, it’s salty. Think of every delicious drink you’ve ever tried. Were any of them salty? Probably not. And the smell. When you are trying to get a feel for the nose of a beer, you put your nose over the rim of the glass and inhale deeply. And when that beer is burnt, you end up with a nose full of charred barbecue with a hint of urine. Yes, urine.
But, in Benelux’s defense, my dislike for smoked beer is not their problem. And the Strato Black did live up to its name. If I had to describe what black tastes like, this would be it: like licking the burnt, caked on gunk at the bottom of an old oven. But salty. I think I tasted a little bit of chocolate too; and hops. But after the smoke and the salt, it didn’t really matter.
My next choice was the Like Water for Chocolate Imperial Porter from Church-Key in western Ontario. But they had stopped pouring that (roughly an hour into the event). So I tried the Nutcracker Porter from Black Oak Brewing Co. in central Ontario. And, as luck would have it, I found another smoked beer. I naively thought that by avoiding black in the name of the actual beer, I could avoid making the same mistake twice. But I was wrong. I had nothing good to say or write about this beer but ‘burned’. So, I offered my glass to my boyfriend with an encouraging smile. He took a sip, grimaced and handed it back.
As I finished choking down my second smoked beer of the evening (a real beer nerd never wastes beer), I perused my Festival Guide and decided on Bar Volo’s own milk stout: Charlevoix Biergotter Viva la Vita Cocoa. They were out of that too. On the pourer’s recommendation, my boyfriend brought back LTM Biergotter Ceci N’est Pas Une Pipe, another Volo creation. When I heard the name, I cringed (et, tu Volo?). I took a sniff and a sip and could go no further. I just could not stomach another smoked beer. And after my last dirty trick, my boyfriend wouldn’t taste it either. I had no other choice but to pour it out in front of the upturned noses of the hard core.
Determined not to taste another burned beer, I chose the Vanilla Bean Porter from Scotch Irish Brewing in eastern Ontario. The nose was sweet vanilla beans and lightly toasted (why would you burn it?) malt with a honey finish. The carbonation was low, even for a cask ale, and the head was non-existent. If I had to describe it in one word, that word would be ‘delicious’. It was just like drinking a vanilla soda with hints of malt and dark coffee flavoring. You have to give Scotch Irish Brewing points for verite. But it just wasn’t beer-like enough for me. I would share this with my friends who claim to dislike beer, but it wouldn’t be my first choice when hankering for a pint.
By the time I finished my soda, the session was drawing to a close. I had time for one more choice, and I went with the Scotch Ale from MacLean's Ales in northern Ontario. Normally, I’m more adventurous with my choices. But I had been burned (literally) and settled for a familiar face.
And maybe that’s what I should have been doing all along. The MacLean’s was delightful. The nose was malty with a hint of summer fruit and overripe strawberry. And the honeyed, fruit flavor paired nicely with the scotch overtones. This was the depth of flavor, the intrigue that I’d been missing. It was light, playful, nuanced (perhaps a little too sweet for a session beer) and interesting. Here was craftsmanship and ingenuity that I could appreciate. Now, with the night coming to a close and unused tickets in my hand, I felt like I was finally getting to appreciate what I had come here to taste.
As I listened to DeadMau5 (the dj apparently did not notice that almost everyone there was over the age of 40) and the clang of the ‘last call’ bell, I had my first interesting, enjoyable pint of the evening: flavors I love, surprises I wasn’t expecting: a simultaneously familiar yet surprising composition. And, taking stock of the evening, I realized that not all new roads lead somewhere delicious, but craft beer offers a great opportunity to find something new or, better yet, something new about something you already love. Oh, and I also learned that smoke beer is and always will be disgusting. That just needed to be said one more time.
