Bottles of St. Ambroise

St. Ambroise Pale Ale from Montreal is currently laying itself atop my tongue. You’re welcome for that image. I’ve got two bottles to lap up, so here we go.

Actually, I’m quite enjoying the sweetish ale with a slight hit of hops which fades quickly. I may be too used to local hoppy beers, but it doesn’t seem too strong in that respect. I think there’s definitely a French aspect to this beer. It’s not super light like some of the French ones I’ve had, or fruity/spicy like the Belgians, but it has a sweetness/fruityness to it which is a nice change from my normal choice of dark porters, hoppy ipas and smooth pale ales. Even though this is also a pale ale, it’s a little different, which is right up my alley. Copper, not golden brown. Boring and the same is bad, unless you’ve perfected that niche.

As I crack the second bottle, a Apricot Wheat Ale this reminds me of the blackberry porter I had a little while back and the incredible nose it struck me with. The apricot is here for sure, but the wheat ale definitely falls back. The first taste is like juice, but that has given way to juice-ish beer. If I had to guess, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what type of beer this is from the flavour alone. But the apricot. I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or not. If you like apricots it is. For spring-summer, it is, which makes sense since it’s a seasonal beer, coming out for the spring.

A couple quick notes about St. Ambroise. It’s a name for beers coming from McAuslan Brewery, in Montreal. The intersting thing about McAuslan is that they claim to be the first micro-brewery, back around 1989, to use bottles. Since micro-brewing didn’t really start too much in Canada until the mid-1980′s, that’s not too much of a surprise, but still a little one.

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