Welcome to Beers and Such, the one and only beer review site owned and operated by yours truly, and therefore my unbiased favourite beer review site on the interwebs. I hope it will be your favourite beer review site, too, one fine day.
Today I'm going to be tasting Burst New England Pale Ale by none other than the fine folks at Great Lakes Brewery in the center of the hockey universe, Toronto, Ontario. As a long suffering Leafs fan, this one is dedicated to the Leafs as they await their chance to advance past the first round of the playoffs in a very long time.
First, this beer looks fun. It's 4.5%, so on the lighter side of the scale, it's cloudy and smells heavily of citrus. I like the smell of this one. It's kind of tropical smelling. There's the citrus smell that I mentioned, but there's something else coming through as well...
Anyway, this isn't a beer smelling site, so let's taste this bitch.
Well, there's definitely citrus flavours to go along with the citrus aroma. It starts out really light tasting - like almost not a taste at all - then the hops come in proud, but not conceited, and then it finishes with something close to a lager flavour for just a second, before giving way to a light bitter aftertaste.
That's a long winded way of saying it's pretty good. I can definitely see sipping a few of these during some sweet playoff action, well into the third round. And beyond. In fact, if the Leafs go all the way this year (That's right, I said it), I'll do another review of this beer to celebrate. It's fitting since it's a Toronto based beer to celebrate a Toronto based victory. You heard it here, first ladies and gents.
I can't tell you how much better this beer will taste after watching the boys in blue hoist the cup! I'm looking forward to it already.
My rating (pre-cup win): 7.5/10 It's decent, but not my favourite.
My lovely wife is my faithful second sipper and she's about as much a leafs fan as she is an IPA fan, so sometimes I wonder why I married her...
My wife's rating: 3/10. That's not too bad from her to be honest.
There you have it, friends. Burst New England Pale Ale by Great Lakes Brewery in Toronto, Ontario is a decent beer, but all in all not my favourite...yet. I have made the promise to re-visit this beer after the leafs win the cup this year, at which time I can all but guarantee it will become my new favourite beer of all time. Check out greatlakesbeer.com to see what else these folks have been up to.
Also, check out @tuskandthrottle over on Instagram. It's an apparel company that recognizes my hometown for that time we killed an elephant. Also, it's my brother's business.