Monday is as much a state of mind as it is a day of the week. So I figure it’s fine for Monday Beer Club to meet on a Tuesday. And since we’re stretching the boundaries today, we also met at a “guest brewery” – Sawdust City in Gravenhurst Ontario. Here is the agenda for today’s meeting.

My request to the bartender was simple – include Juicin’ in the flight. All the beers had a similar profile – hazy with lots of hop character. There were 18 beers on tap, but by eliminating some of the obvious ones (e.g., it’s pretty clear it doesn’t include a stout) we narrowed it down to 6-8 possible candidates. Should be easy to figure out which is which, right? Wrong!
Number 1: (far left) This beer was brimming with pineapple and tropical fruits with very little hop bitterness.
Our guess: Limberlost Wild IPA. And the answer was Gnarnia Lil’ IPA. Not off to a good start here…
Number 2: Very little bitterness & lots of hazy body. I thought I got hints of stone fruit here.
Our guess: Everyday Magic. And the answer was Juicin’. This was very disappointing because we know how Juicin’ tastes … or we thought we did. Hmmmmm
Number 3: Medium mouthfeel with a lot of tropical fruit and not too much bitterness.
Our guess: Our initial instinct was to guess Juicin’, but once we realized that was the second beer, we changed our guess to Everyday Magic. And finally, we were right … with a little help. As an aside, this beer has higher IBU than the first two, but I just couldn’t taste it. I need to keep working on this it seems.
Number 4: This beer was a bit sharper, but didn’t taste too alcoholic. I almost thought this could be a session beer. (Hint: boy was I wrong there…)
Our guess: Our first guess was Gnarnia Lil IPA but that was the first beer, so we changed our guess to Limberlost Wild IPA. And the answer was … Lone Pine West Coast IPA. Whoa boy, was I wrong. High alcohol and high IBUs and I’m thinking a session beer. Seriously? Need … more … practice.
Number 5: (far right) I was getting a bit of funkiness and a mild sour taste. Pleasant and refreshing – this beer was distinctly different than the other 4.
Our guess: At this point we had ruled out a number of options, and with only a few hints we guessed Limberlost Wild IPA … and we were right. With our hit rate today, we accepted, giving us the stellar score of … 40%. Sheesh.