Monthly Archives: August 2014

Lake Chelan – Chelan Gold

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Lake Chelan "Chelan Gold" Bottle

Lake Chelan “Chelan Gold” Bottle

Imagine dragons apples. Imagine a whole bushel of apples — Fuji, Gala, Jonathon, Golden Delicious, Rome, Granny Smith, and Red Delicious, according to Lake Chelan’s website — perfectly ripe, all chilling in a bucket of icy water. Now imagine all of that apple-ness in your mouth. Not the pulped and juiced extracts of those apples poured into a glass, but the apples themselves. All of them. In your mouth.

Are you imagining that? Ok, good. You’ve now got a pretty solid idea of what this cider tastes like. It’s sweet, but not excessively so, with just a little bitterness to balance it out, and tart and acidic in moderation as well. Medium bodied, with a finish that doesn’t linger long.

I’m glad I gave this cider a chance. Every time I went to my local liquor store to stock up, I’d see Chelan Gold on the end of one shelf of the cold section, and for some reason I’ve always gotten the impression that their stock of it doesn’t move much — perhaps in part because it seems to be on sale on a regular basis. The uninspiring logo design and pale clear color aren’t doing it any favors, either, but having tried it out, I can definitely see myself returning to it from time to time in the future.

Chelan Gold is one of the stillest ciders I’ve ever had, a nearly colorless clear straw yellow, with a slight aroma of both fresh apples and apple pie. It’s available in 1L bottles and has an ABV of 7.0% but I’d never guess it; if someone told me it was nonalcoholic I would probably believe them.

Whistler Grapefruit, light of my life

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Whistler Grapefruit Ale

Normally bright yellow, an iPhone 4s and a dark fan in the background can do mysterious things to the colour of a beer.

The Specs: Whistler Brewing Co. Paradise Valley Grapefruit Ale
Available in 6 packs of cans or bottles; 5 per cent ABV; seasonal offering

If there’s one thing to know about my reviewing style up front, before we get this sucker going, it’s this: My ideal beer is Whistler’s Paradise Valley Grapefruit Ale.

Over the course of the month I’ll have more to say about fruit beers, but in the back of my head I’ll be comparing everything to Whistler’s cult summertime favourite.

For those uninitiated, Whistler Grapefruit is, I’m convinced, the beer Anheuser-Busch wants you to believe you’re drinking when you sidle up to the bar for a Corona.

Bright yellow in colour, W.G. is similarly smooth while also retaining that bite and snap of citrus right off the top — even without a lime slice shoved down the neck.

Of course, I wouldn’t love it the way I do if there weren’t differences. Rather than the high-acid sourness of lemons and limes, W.G. aims for grapefruit’s earthier, bitter notes.

When I read Whistler Brewing Co. brews this particular ale with grapefruit rinds a lot about W.G’s taste profile snapped into place for me. This is closer to the effect of scratching your nail across an unpeeled fruit than sucking down a slug of grapefruit juice, which helps the beer shine in an area where other fruit beers can fail: actual beer flavour. And believe me, you’ll see a few of the opposite over these next few weeks…