Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Purchased at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario Store. The beer pours a solid dark brown colour with red edges, and a light tan coloured cap. The aroma is roasted malt, dark fruits, weak caramel, and yeast. The flavour mirrors the aroma with the dark fruit and roasted malt evident up front and a bitter yeasty finish. Quite enjoyable.

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

Belgian Ales have a place in my fridge all the time. This is a light brown ale, slightly hazed with a white cap. The aroma is sweet malt, yeast, and lemon zest. Ample spices are prevalent as well. The flavour is sweet caramel, yeast, and spices. Quite good.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

One of the more renowned beers that comes out of Belgium. It pours a dark gold colour, slightly hazy, with a white cap that lingers. The aroma is candy sugar, light fruit, yeast, grains, and some floral hops. The flavour is light sweet fruits, some burnt candy, yeast, and dessert spices. One of the first Belgians I tried over 20 years ago, and one I return to every now and then.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

When it comes to Lambics, Boon does it right. This is a fine scarlet red beer with a bubbly pink head. Lots of yeast.funk in the aroma to go along with the tart raspberries. The flavour is nicely balanced between sweet and tart fruit, and vinegary funk.

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

Purchased at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario Store. This comes packaged in a nice tissue cover. The beer pours a dark reddish brown with a light brown bubbly head. The aroma is funk, tart fruit, yeast, and grains. The flavour is tart cherries, some sweet malt, and more of the yeast and earthy funk.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 4

Okay, this beer is well rated everywhere but it tastes like an alcoholic fruit drink more than any beer. A bright red pour with a pink bubbly cap that covers the surface. The aroma is candy sugar and strawberry syrup. The flavour is sweet and tart strawberry. Again, what’s the big deal with this one that I’m missing?

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

A classic witbier, quite possibly the original. This beer pours a hazed light yellow colour with a huge bubbly white cap. The aroma is wheat, coriander, and yeast. The flavour is sweet wheat malt, and finishes with a spicy bitter finish. Very refreshing, but nothing real exciting here.

Aroma: 10 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

When this beer was originally released, few people paid any attention to the beer itself, rather they paid attention to the labels. A few years later, and people are raving about both. Collective Arts has no static label for any of their beers, when you buy a 6 pack, or a group of cans, each one will have a different drawing on the label…how neat is that? R&R is a mellow APA. The beer marries the sweetness of the malt with the citrusy bitterness of the hops like no other. Definitely a winner.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 5

English and Irish style stouts have been a part of the Canadian brewing scene longer than Canada’s been a country, and it’s almost mandatory that all new craft brewers in the country make either a dry stout or an oatmeal stout. This isn’t in the list of better ones. It starts off a nice dark coca-cola colour but after that, everything falls short. It’s a thin stout with very bland roasted malt notes and even weaker cocoa notes.

Aroma: 5 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 5

Coming in at 4.1%, this is a weak APA in both design and flavour. A light rust colour, slightly hazed with a thin snow white ring for a head. Weak caramel and weak citrus notes in the aroma represent the malt and hops. The other notes in the aroma are very acidic and metallic in nature. Flavour is weak and watered down. Shouldn’t have expected better considering the brewer.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 5

I was not too excited to try this beer because when I heard the name Frank because my first thought was Frank D’Angelo. Fortunately he’s not behind the brewery. Unfortunately the beer isn’t all that good. It’s nice and dark, but the aroma and flavour is a hot mess. Too much roasted malt, and not enough of anything else.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

A brewery that comes with a great reputation and it should be no surprise that this was a great beer. A dark brown beer, the cap is creamy, brown, and lasts a while. The dominant aromatic is yeast, but there are also hints of dark fruit, plenty of seasonal spices, and molasses. The beer starts out sweet with the fruit and molasses notes, but the finish is mildly bitter. There are notes of yeast. An excellent beer.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 6

This is supposed to be a faithful representation of an ale from the beginning of the 20th century. It is a dark metallic gold in colour, pretty much clear, with an off-white head that sticks around, but doesn’t lace well. The aroma is biscuits, caramel, and spicy hops. The flavour is sweet malt, caramel, and a decent bitter finish. It does make you wonder that if they have this recipe in the books, why do have to drink Export?

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 4 | Mouthfeel: 3 | Flavor: 3 | Overall: 3

This brewery needs to get their act together. Molson Canadian is a lager, Molson Canadian 67 is a light lager. So, how does one go about naming a session IPA after two well established lagers? I can’t figure it out either. It pours a weak clear copper colour with a thin white ring for a cap. The hoppish aroma is more earthy than fruity, and the dominant Molson malt nose, is noticeable absent. Flavour is what beer’s all about eh? And if anybody ever finds any flavour in this one….let me know, because I couldn’t discern any.

Aroma: 5 | Appearance: 4 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 4

Seriously…who drinks a lagered American style wheat beer? Apparently I do, but not any more. The can pours a cloudy golden yellow with a frothy white head. So far so good. Then the aroma kicks in and we have an epic fail. Where’s the wheat? Where’s the banana? The clove? The bubble gum? All I can smell is grains, some weak corianderish spice, and herbal hops. The flavour was as epic a fail as was the aroma. What is a wheat beer if you can’t find the wheat?

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 3 | Overall: 3

Energy beer….yum! I know a lot of people who will tell you that this is the worst beer they’ve ever tasted. I’m not one of them…Old Milwaukee has this beat hands down, but this is still bad. Anything about Molson Canadian that is remotely redeeming, was lost with the addition of guarana. It killed the aroma and destroyed the taste. This is some bitter bitter shit!

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 3 | Flavor: 2 | Overall: 2

I’m not sure what this is supposed to be, but I do know what it is not….it’s not very good! Once you open the bottle you can smell the alcohol, and once you pour it into the glass you can smell the corn. The pour is devoid of any real head and is a light metallic gold in colour. The flavour is metallic grains, corn, and alcohol. If you aren’t accustomed to Malt Liquors, then you may have trouble choking this down.

Aroma: 2 | Appearance: 2 | Mouthfeel: 2 | Flavor: 2 | Overall: 2

It never ceases to amaze me that craft brewers can take some things like hops, malt, water, and yeast and make something decent out of it while macro brewers are stuck at that 5% level. For the last few years, the ‘Session IPA’ has been a ‘thing’ in Canada with ABVs as low as 3% and some of these beers very flavourful, yet Cracked Canoe tastes like somebody took 11.5oz of water and added 0.5oz of Moosehead and called it a beer.

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 3 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 3

From the files of ‘what the hell we’re they thinking’ comes this beer that was better left in the mind of the person that concocted it. It pours a translucent rust colour with no head. Lots of caramel in the aroma, but no citrus. Flavour is more sweet than I would like, mainly because there is no bitter hop finish to balance it out.

Aroma: 3 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 3 | Flavor: 3 | Overall: 3

Back in the mid-90s, everybody and their cousin was making ice and dry beers. Some breweries had elaborate commercials to explain how they were made (lying through their teeth while doing it) and telling us how they were crisper and more refreshing. Thankfully, not once, did they claim to be more flavourful. The ‘ice’ treatment of Moosehead was simply a way to serve a higher alcohol version of Moosehead for a slightly higher price, and make more money.

Aroma: 3 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 2 | Flavor: 2 | Overall: 3

It’s long been thought in Canada that when you get a ‘Light’ version of a macro beer, it is really just the same beer watered down. This is definitely my impression of Moosehead Light when compared to Moosehead Lager. The colour is definitely a lighter shade of gold, and the malty presence in the aroma and flavour is definitely muted.

Aroma: 3 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 3 | Flavor: 3 | Overall: 3

The ubiquitous Eastern Canadian beer that really is no better than other Canadian macros. A Moosehead Lager can be summarized as a clear golden lager with a white head, with plenty of grainy malt character in the both the nose and the flavour. As with any other macro lager, plenty of off-aromas and flavours.

Aroma: 3 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 3 | Flavor: 3 | Overall: 3

Seriously, be honest with me….this is just Moosehead Lager under a different label. I know it is. It looks like the lager, smells like the lager, and tastes like the lager. Ergo, it must be the lager.

Aroma: 5 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 5

After the Ice beer fad died down, we had the dry beer fad with the tagline ‘no aftertaste’. Personally it was only the cruddy North American macro beers that ever had much of an aftertaste, the Belgian beers available in the 80s didn’t have any (still don’t). Again, Moosehead Dry was just Moosehead Lager bottled under a different label with a supposedly higher ABV.

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

A very dark black stout with a creamy beige head. Muskoka has been known to be hit and miss on beers, and this is a miss in my opinion. It lacks balance. There is a lot of bitterness in the aroma with hints of coffee and roasted malt, but the flavour is a tad too sweet for a stout with fruity and milk chocolate notes…..but it isn’t a milk stout.