ABOUT A BEER: Crazy Canuck by Great Lakes

In an effort to focus this blog a bit more, and bring it back to its roots of sharing what I'm learning about beer in Ontario, I bring you this new feature. "About a Beer" focuses on a beer that has marked my oddyssey in beer, and that I really like. These beers are often found in my fridge, and I heartily endorse them. I hope this feature helps you to separate the wheat from the chaff when you're faced with the lcbo/beer store walls of beer, or those chalkboards at the pubs.

WHAT IS IT? Crazy Canuck, a west coast style american pale ale (APA) with 5.2% alcohol.


WHO MAKES IT? Great Lakes Brewing Company. Toronto's oldest craft brewery.


WHERE CAN I FIND IT? It's at most lcbos and beer stores I've ever been to. Great on draft, but also keep an eye out for Great Lakes Canucklehead, which you can also find sometime on draft - it's a doubly hopped (MORE HOPS!) version of Crazy Canuck.



WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE? APAs are generally pretty hoppy ales that use american hop varieties. These hops, such as cascade, generally give some good bitterness and a citrus flavour, like grapefruit. Crazy Canuck is great because it has the mouth puckering grapefruity-ness of an ipa (a hopped up apa), but without the higher alcohol content that usually comes with it. For me, the dominant flavours are grapefruity hops, and a bread-like malt backbone. What I find particularly interesting with this beer, other than the hops (HOPSHOPSHOPSHOPS!!!), is that you can really taste the water. Not in a bad way, at all, but in a refreshing, tonic water kind of way. It's really interesting.

WHEN SHOULD I DRINK THIS?

This is a great anytime beer, but particularly excels when it's real hot out (because of the refreshing water taste, and the relatively low alcohol) or at BBQs (for the same reasons, plus the kitschy can).


TELL ME A STORY ABOUT CRAZY CANUCK:

With pleasure.

I was just getting into beer. It was boiling outside. I was going to a Canada day BBQ with people I didn't know, as you tend to do a lot of when you're a new dad. I was faced with the dreaded "wall of beer" at the lcbo, and wasn't sure, at all, what to get. The Crazy Canuck tallboy can was kitchsy, and the name screamed "Canada Day." Plus, I'd heard it was good. But the kitschy-dork can had me doubting what I'd heard. With hesitation, I tucked a few of those bad boys into the diaper bag (after I'd paid for them), like any classy parent does, and we headed to the BBQ.


I was hip. I was cool. I schmoozed. I cracked open the can, poured it into a plastic cup (because even at a BBQ beer deserves to be drunk in a glass), and I tried it. I did not like it. My tastebuds were attacked by bitter. They didn't know what was happening. Neither did I. This did not taste like Keith's. My mouth puckered. But I didn't show it. No, I was cool, hip dad drinking his cool, hip beer. Though my mouth was puckering on the outside, I was making cool lips on the outside. All the other dads wanted to chill with me. Hang, like the kids say. Inside: bleugh. When we left, my wife asked me what I thought of the beer. "It was great," I lied, as I strutted away.


And that was that. Or so I thought. That night, hops came to me while I was in bed and whispered "hops," as it stroked my ear. "hops?" I replied. "hops," hops replied. And so, the next day, I tried it again. And it was good. Better, at least. And I was well on my way to acquiring my taste for hops. It took awhile, but once hops really took, it was like the first time I had sushi, I couldn't get enough of it. I still can't. Crazy Canuck baptized me as a hop head. And now no hops is too much hops. Particularly those west coast, grapefruity hops that are so prominent in the Crazy Canuck.