CulturAle Press

Collective Arts Imperial Porter, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Date:  December 6, 2018

The Story— We stay in Canada from another day.   We don’t know the Canadian scene as well as we’d like to.   We had better connections in the early 90s when Maurice Coja of the Brickskeller was bringing in breweries and brewers for our tasting series there.   As we pointed out yesterday, Canada was a part of the forefront of the craft movement in the early 90s, and while we don’t see the energy of, say Italy, it’s still the home of some very good breweries.

Collective Arts intends itself to be as much of an arts promoter as craft brewer and, from our far-from-Canada perspective is doing quite well in both.  They have some of the most creative can label art since the Swedes put images of the great master painters on their cans in the 1980s.     A big difference is that the Swedish beer was yellow and, while almost OK, really ordinary mass market lager.   Collective Arts matches the art on their labels and the music in their taprooms with remarkable creativity in their beers.

The Beer—  This 8.6 Imperial Porter could have a twin brother of a black or brown IPA.  Creamy with some patent malt while chocolate walks along the whole way.  Rich, but the hops are there under it all all the time.

Value —  Good.  This came in a tall can, which saves the big bottle expense.

 About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

This week we feature HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Some of the great beers we’ve found in our European travels. Some of these are the specific beers readers of Drinking In the Culture wanted us to include in that book.   A few may be some of the surprisingly good beer we’ve found in “bad beer cities”  as we researched our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)

Next week we’ll return to the US and highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

COMING LATER IN DECEMBER:   THE TEN BEST OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS.  We count down to the New Year by thinking back on some of the greatest beers we’ve found in the last five years of hunting.   These beers are in our top 0.2% of the beers we’ve tasted in those five years.