Garrison Spruce Ale

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Spruce beer, hay ?! I like spruce beer, the pop drink, but this is the first time I try this alcohol version. From the LCBO. Pours a clean dark copper colour with a nice red shine through. Beige head that is frothy, lasting long and creating lots of webbing. At first pour, the smell is on the molasses side with hints of coffee and chocolate. Then, after breathing a bit, the aromas change to notes of caramel, bananas and the spruce way in the back. Quite interesting nose overall. Roasted malt taste remind me of burnt wood, with some dark fruits but that are nicely different with a beautiful dryness to it. All well-balanced with the hop, spruce, cherry-like flavour and bananas. Almost like a cough medicine (that is fortunately good). A very, very interesting brew, that is nice to have one - from time to time.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 8

Half liter bottle pours a dark amber with a ruby blush, a clear filtered beer, smallish off-white cap, soft carbonation. Aroma is pungent and unique, with some layered complexity – overtones of balsam, cocoa, burnt treacle, fresh toasty cereals mingle with smoke, earthy, spicy, herbaceous undertones – great nose to this one. Rich palate, medium bodied, chewy sticky texture. It’s hard to determine a flavor profile per se, because the beer starts off and stays a rich amalgam of toasty malts, smoky dark fruits, roasty cocoa balanced with an astringence that I can only describe as pine tar mixed with resinous hops. As the beer finishes the pine tar and hops dominate giving a long complimentary bittering that lingers as an after-taste on the palate. This is a very well made unique beer but having had an aversion to the pine tar in cough syrup as a kid, the spruce aspect doesn’t work for me. I’ve had the same reaction to the spruce beers offered in Quebec where the style is popular. I will never refuse a glass of this once in a long while, but I would be struggling to drink 2 back to back. Just the same, this is a wonderful amalgam of flavors to find in strong ale if you can take the overtly medicinal taste of pine tar.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

500ml bottle
7.5% ABV
Queen's Quay LCBO Outlet (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
February 1, 2012
2012 Garrison LCBO Feature
The beer poured a translucent reddish brown with a very thin head. Aroma is smoked malt, spruce, molasses and some earthy funk. The mouthfeel was medium bodied with medium carbonation. The flavour is roast malt, vegetation, and a definite pronounced sweet syrupy taste like newly made maple syrup.