Maple Butter Tart Ale | Flavoured | Midland’s Best (Sawdust Brewery)

from the Brewer: On August 1st 2015 at Griffin SESSION Muskoka we held the inaugral ‘Collaboration Nation North’ beer contest. 12 Northern Ontario townships entered a beer idea to compete for the best ‘Township Beer.’
In co-operation with brewmaster Sam Corbeil of the Sawdust City Brewing Co. the township of Midland came up with the winning idea — a maple butter tart beer.”

Yes, this beer is a real thing … and for those of you who love butter tarts, here’s the other fun fact. Midland is Ontario’s butter tart capital and it boasts a yearly festival as well. Next event: June 10, 2017. Check it out and read more about the creation of the beer as reported in this CTV story here.

Stats: Flavoured Alt-Ale ♦ 5% ABV ♦ Gravenhurst, Ontario.
Colour: Medium-Amber; Filtered.
Mouth Feel: Light carbonation with very soft butteriness and light in the mouth.
Location/Price: LCBO ♦ $3.25 can (473ml)
Pairings: On it’s own or with pancakes — hell, ya! (). ♦ A dessert beer on its own, with a bowl of vanilla ice cream, or perhaps with a croissant for brunch ;o) ()

Her Review

You can be sure that when I spotted this beer on an end cap at the store, it raised an eyebrow and perhaps, because I was hungry, made me salivate just a little. I nudged Dale who I’m sure let out a little ‘hmm’, and intrigued, we grabbed a single can to share. We really just thought it would either be a fun experiment inspired by a dessert we both love … or a terrible, sweet mess. Worth a try? For sure.

This ale pours a gorgeous dark amber with a small head on it, which says to me that it has carbonation on the lighter side – which is fine by me. The tiny bubbles make for a little bit of foam and light lacing that clung to the edge of the glass the whole time I was sipping it. This already made me a happy girl.

The aroma of this beer is a bit deceiving actually – which was a pleasant surprise in my opinion. It smells quite sweet and rich and a bit artificial, which you might expect from a beer dubbed ‘maple butter tart’. The maple and caramel aromas are predominant and fill the glass. It smells really good for a dessert, but I was afraid that it would taste too sweet or that all I would be able to taste would be the additives. You can’t really smell much other than the yummy extracts (as opposed to real flavours brewed in) added to the beer – hence why I deducted points, because it doesn’t smell as much like a beer as a beer should.

The first taste was surprisingly balanced considering the nose – not overly sweet, and the taste of the butter rum, vanilla, maple and caramel extracts not overwhelming. The fine bitters come through perfectly just enough to balance the dessert-like flavours without taking away from them – actually, the bitters linger in your mouth like a great session ale – just enough to satisfy and hang on longer than the added flavours, which to me is a win and so is the fact that the natural malts still come through. This beer reminds me a little bit of root beer.

Truly, this is a great stand-alone beer when you feel like something different, flavourful and perhaps an after-dinner beer that substitutes for dessert without making you feel sick afterwards! It would be nice with a little vanilla ice cream, or even baked into a nice loaf, actually.

Generally I would categorize a flavoured beer like this into the ‘buy once to try on a whim, enjoy it, move on’ category, but given the flavourful yet balanced drink as well as the story behind it, I would buy this another time if it were to pop up in the store again. Dare I even say it is a nice luxury for the right mood. I deducted a couple points from the overall score because it isn’t what I expected and I think perhaps the description on the can could do a better job of selling what it is.

Certainly this very sessionable ale will appeal to those who are not huge hop heads and who shy away from big bitters…a unique beer that could appeal to seasoned beer snobs just wanting something of a treat as well as to newbies or occasional beer drinkers who are excited by a butter tart in a glass – this is a great one just to share (or, perhaps not!).

I say, great teamwork to the Township of Midland and Sawdust City Brewing – thanks for the awesome treat in the form of a great ale inspired by one of my favorite desserts and a great Ontario collaboration.

First Taste (10)   = 5
Appearance (5) = 5
Aftertaste (15)  = 14
Aroma (10)      = 7
Mouthfeel (10) = 10
Overall: (10):       = 8
                   53/60 = 88%

His Review

I spend a lot of my life developing partnerships and opportunities for collaboration, and I love it when an idea between unlikely collaborators really comes together. “Butter Tart” is a great of example of this as an Ontario township (Township of Midland) teams up with a local brewery (Sawdust City) to produce something unique — something made possible when idea and capability come together.

The million dollar question is, does putting a butter tart in a can of beer work? The answer might surprise you ….

And, trust me, it only takes a couple of sips before you’re sold. The maple is strong — as soon as you break the seal of the can, you can smell it … a smell that I know only too well as a kid and which I’ll take with me to my own grave, that is the taste of butter rum Lifesaver’s offered to me by my (great) Uncle Jack with his yellowed smoker fingers and nails. Truth is, I won’t get those two memories ever out of my head and yet, yes, I fell in love with those Lifesavers and, not surprisingly, will always have a tender place in my heart for old Uncle Jack, long gone from this world.

The smell, I’ll admit, then, is a bit “artificial” but still very comforting. Butter rum Lifesavers, crossed with maple walnut ice cream. What this says is that the malts, a beautiful dark red amber — almost the colour of a good Anejo rum — are in superb balance with decent bitters which bring with them creamy, creamy diacetyl drenched waters. Yum, yum, yum. Dessert in a glass if ever there was one.

Don’t be fooled, this isn’t a sweet beer, but the malted caramels definitely play a strong melody with the maple extract. The mouth of the beer is soft and very creamy and the carbonation a light medium doesn’t get in the way. Indeed, pour the beer as hard as you want, you’re not going to get a tonne of head and it’s going to fade quickly and leave very little in the way of lacing apart from a ring of bubbles around the edge of the glass which last a surprisingly long time.

The front of the mouth and first taste is pretty much sugar and malts which are nice and dark … a bit like the taste of a flattened cola. In the middle, however, there is a pause, a bit of wateriness, while the band seems to take a session break and walk of leaving just a stick of butter on stage to melt before coming back with some carbonation and the bitters … which is the same place the fun flavours pick up.

All in all, this 473mL can is a nice digestive to share with a friend or loved one. You don’t need a full can, I’d say, and you definitely don’t need two cans of it in a session. The point is made — it’s fun, different, and a nice treat.

Apart from the missing third act (read: middle), my knock against the beer is that is what I’d say “contrived” and the fact that so much of the flavour is derived through “extracts” and not the ream McCoy. That is to say, it tastes less “brewed” than it is created. So compare it to great beers, no it doesn’t real stand up — but nor does it really deserve to be compared because I will take the controversial stance that it is just a ‘fun’ beer that regardless of how it is made, still tastes good … and for all the Uncle Jacks and lifesaver eaters in the world, cheers … this tarts for you.

First Taste (10)   = 8
Appearance (5) = 5
Aftertaste (15)  = 13
Aroma (10)       = 8
Mouthfeel (10)  = 9
Overall: (10):       = 7
             50/60 = 83%