The holiday season has been put to rest. The time of year where you can stop walking on egg shells with fear of wishing the wrong person an offensive Merry Christmas instead of the begrudgingly politically correct Happy Holidays. The department stores have replaced the Christmas Trees collecting dust in the seasonal aisle with Valentine’s Day trinkets. Or, to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings, the Holiday Deciduous Oxygen Exchange Units collecting dust with Asexual Cards of Non-confrontational Harassment Content. Well, the good news is the Muskoka Brewery, located off the shores of Lake Huron, has created a stout that’s incapable of offending anyone: Winter Beard Double Chocolate Cranberry Stout.
Winter Beard could be classified as chocolate stout but it’s also similar in character to an imperial stout. A strong dark beer that sucks up light like a black hole with piles of malty character, little carbonation and a higher alcohol percentage. It was the perfect combination for surviving the long and cold trade routes from England to Russia in the late 1700’s. Imperial Stout peaked in popularity when Catherine the Great developed a taste for this brew, especially in the company of young Russian men. In fact, a scandalous rumor about her prowess made the rounds after her death. It was said she died attempting to get intimate with a horse. Whether or not Imperial Stout influenced the rumor or she was just looking for a ride home is unknown, but it turned out to be just a drunken tale.
I can sympathize with this rumor and understand how such a ridiculous tale was conceived. After taking my first sip of Winter Beard, I was faced with a dilemma. Do I continue to drink this incredible stout? Or do I close the blinds, strip down and pour it all over my body? This beer is that good and is cause for celebration.
To set the record straight, I composed myself and continued sampling this seasonal beer.
“The mouth feel is like velvet. It is medium sweet and coats the mouth with dark chocolate and just a hint of tartness from the cranberries. It finishes with a subtle bitterness.” explains the brewery. “At 8% alcohol, it is strong, but you do not taste the heat from the high alcohol. It is dark and creamy and can remind you of a fudgsicle. It has a delicate effervescence that creates the sensation of ice crystals melting.”
Muskoka brewery is governed by very high standards. They champion freshness and don’t hide a thing with all the pure ingredients listed on the bottle. You won’t find any preservatives, additives or cheap ingredients that speed up the brewing process such as high fructose corn syrup. In every bottle, there is just 70% dark chocolate, real cocoa, pristine water, a variety of roasted dark malts, hops and the game changer – fresh cranberries.
The cranberries are supplied from a local farm. Johnston’s Cranberry farm has been growing premium cranberries for three generations following a tradition of quality and environmental responsibility. They care about the land they farm and this is evident in better tasting berries. It’s this pride for the ingredient that is passed along to the brewery. The cranberries are added to a secondary tank where they get the chance to mingle with the stout for up to a week to 10 days.
The cranberry flavor is muted and subtle. Instead, it offers the beer a brightness that other stouts lack. In fact, if cranberries were not listed as an ingredient, there’s a good chance you may not notice the flavor but there would still be that “je ne sais quoi” enhancing the experience.
This is where this beer carves its own niche and sets its own tradition. It’s rich but the bright flavors heighten the world of beer into the most exciting time of the year. Now that the holidays are far behind, we are forced to settle into the bleakness of winter with only the bills to remind us of good times. However, with beer like this, you’re no longer settling. You’re taking the winter head on with a new found warmth and comfort you just can’t get from an Asexual Card of Non-confrontational Harassment Content (aka Valentine). And there’s nothing offensive about that no matter what holiday comes next.
Blair Phillips
Toronto Canada
blair_phillips@yahoo.com
Twitter: @Blair_Phillips
