Tasting notes: The Creemore family

ok, so Creemore is my fallback beer, partly because it's so widely available here (and it tends to be the only good thing on tap), and partly because it's delicious.




I started drinking Creemore around the turn of the century, mainly because, at the time, it was the "house beer" at Chez Piggy in Kingston and, at the time, Chez Piggy was the be-all-and-end-all of all things delicious in my life (such is life growing up in Kingston). Needless to say, I may have an emotional bond with the beer that you don't have. For me, it's an Ontario beer, with a Kingston connection, and those associations give this beer a head up to begin with.




Creemore does lose a few "cool points" with many for having been bought by Molson in 2005 but, to be honest, I haven't much noticed a difference since then. Has anyone else? Would be interested inhearing if you have... I'm not so opposed to this, especially when the mega-corp respects the recipes and the brewers. It doesn't seem like such a bad thing having good beer more widely available, no?




Anyway, I decided to pit the three Creemore's against each other in some head-to-head action.




Creemore Springs Lager


This is the original, and the beer I was referring to earlier when I said Creemore is my fallback beer. You can get this one almost anywhere here in Ontario/Easy to drink/nice malt-hops balance/enough personality to keep me interested, but not so much I get tired of it (thus a perfect fallback beer./Almost a root beer taste in the front (for lack of a better descriptor)/Slight tinge of hops bitterness, but not too much.




Creemore Springs Traditional Pilsner


I'll start this off by saying I'm not a huge pilsner fan - I find it generally a bit boring./Nice head, nice golden colour/nice slight bitterness at the end/very refreshing/not very fizzy/Not crazy about this beer/Maybe it's not hoppy enough? I'm not sure what it is about it... Maybe I just don't much care for Pilsners?/Little bit of caramel, little bit of spiciness




Creemore Springs Kellerbier


Nice hops smell/dry taste/little bitterness/tastes of cereal, coffee, and roasty and toasty malts/Fruity aroma that doesn't extend to the taste/clean finish/Good, but not enough character for my taste.



*disclaimer: These are the tasting notes of an unsophisticated (so far) and newly mindful palate. Me not liking a beer is not necessarily a reflection of a bad beer, but is rather the consequence of a disagreement between my taste in beer and the brewmaster's taste in beer. Where noted, however, the beer is just plain bad.

Tasting notes

Brooklyn Lager:

Good lager with character/In the same vein as Creemore (my fall back beer) but slightly less to my taste/Good and hoppy/nice bitterness, maybe not malty enough? Slightly off balance?

Schofferhofer Hefeweizen:

So, I did the whole hefeweizen song and dance where you place the glass on top and slowly turn it over. BIG MESS! Then, with a little bit left, I placed the bottle on it's side and rolled it back and forth to get the yeast, and poured that on top. It was a fun production, but I didn't really see the benefit.../Sweet smell/Cloudy/Smooth/Malty (bready? Caramel?)/A little bland for my taste, but refreshing nonetheless/Kind of a chalky taste to it (minerally? Tonic water?)/nice fizz.

Crazy Canuck Pale Ale (Great Lakes Brewery):

Nice lacing. Smells like crazy american hops (that bitter, grapefruit smell)/Nice head, good carbonation. Great bitterness, lingering hops/Very bitter, good example of a west coast pale ale/Not crazy about the malt flavour/Not enough subtlety, but a good hops wallop if that's what you're in the mood for/Tasted once before I knew anything about hops and found it too bitter, now I crave that bitterness.

*disclaimer: These are the tasting notes of an unsophisticated (so far) and newly mindful palate. Me not liking a beer is not necessarily a reflection of a bad beer, but is rather the consequence of a disagreement between my taste in beer and the brewmaster's taste in beer. Where noted, however, the beer is just plain bad.