Heritage Black Currant Rye Ale

Kichesippi Beer Company
Formerly brewed at Heritage Brewing Limited
Style: Fruit Beer
Ottawa, Canada

Serve in Flute, Shaker

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Bottle from an OCB media pack. 2007 version. Nice ruby colour with a good size pink head. Great balance of malt and sweet-tart fruit in the aroma. Medium bodied. Mild malt profile with a nice infusion of red currant. Sweet without being too sweet. Pretty nice stuff.

This beer has been totlly retooled in 2007 and deserves a re rate Pours an darker copper red with shimmering ruby high lights..tight pored 1 finger caps lasts well and laces the glass. Sweet aromas are gone and in their place this brew gives spicey malty tones with tart berry fruit under tones. Flavor is typical of Rye beers upfront; grainy-spicey then the fruity tones kick in but NOT over powering nor sweet...tart berry and citrus hops meld well in the center and the finish is clean spicy-fruity bitter-tart and clean. Very drinkable in this state and recommended a top flight fruit ale...actually now one of the better ones in the Ontario market

Bomber from the LCBO. Pours a dark, translucent, ruby but almost blood red, with a large pink fluffly head. It’s actually pretty interesting looking, especially when held against some light. Aroma: Hops, oddly enough, and some black currant, what? No rye? Taste: Surprisingly good! Black currant, followed by a small sour bite, with nice malts in there, perhaps pils malts or something typically used for lagers because I can taste straw and a little sweet dough. There’s some nice hop flavour in the finish as well. The aftertaste is nice and tasty, again the hay and straw I’d expect from a well made malty lager are evident. Seems like a pretty decent beer to me. Maybe it’s been tweaked a bit since some of the lower ratings were given. It’s a tad on the sweet side, but usually I’m pretty sensitive to overly sweet beer, and I can still drink this. I like the label on the bottle too, cool and pleasant looking. I really do like Heritage/Scotch Irish Brewing, and I really wish I could have more beers from them available to me in the K-W area.

LCBO bottle purchase- Hazy pink/red pour with a frothy light pink cap. Nice lace too. The nose is quite fruity. Cherries and currants with cotton candy and fruit punch. Currants are up front and are sweet, but balanced with a tart cherry presence, and some raspberry jam. Sweet, but not a sugar bomb like I expected. I wouldn’t want a lot of this at once, but it is pretty nice.

Draught @ West 50, Mississauga, ON: Noticed this new offering today at lunch and grabbed a pint. Came cherry in colour, decent and disconcerting off-pink head. Lacing was quite good from top to bottom. Aroma was very sweet, cherries, black currants (duh!), and grapefruit. Flavour is milder than I thought off the aroma, nice and malty with excellent balanced hopping and a muted tart/fruity background. Much better than I’d expected, and a good offering.

A purpleish head floats on a ruby beer. A nice plesant fruity yeasty aroma comes out of the glass, not much else going on in the flavour. It’s mostly fruit, but a faint grain backbone is also present. It’s not a rich malt, I guess that can be atributed to the rye? I’ve got nothing to compare that to.

Bought at the downtown Kingston LCBO on a brief visit before we head off to Mexico. Dark mahogany brown, clear, with a modest light brown head with poor retention. Huge berry-fruit aroma with bready undertones and a little sweet spice. Syrupy sweet fruit-cordial up front, but there is greater depth here in the form of dark bready malts and a very mild bitterness in the finish. Once again, this is a little too sweet to warrent a re-purchase, but having said that I enjoyed the whole 650ml bottle more than expected.

Pours a lovely deep burgundy to red colour with a nice thick pink head that dissipates reasonably quickly. Nose is very fruity, but also spicy. I think the spice that you smell is the rye, but I am not positive. The fruity smell is probably currants, but I do not really know what they smell like. Flavour is very sweet and very fruity. In the finish it is a little bit dry for a second, and you can taste a bit of the spicy rye, but it is mostly fruity and sweet. There is a hint of sourness there, but not very much. Feels pretty ok in the mouth though. Not bad for a fruit beer, but not something I would want to drink a lot of.

Reddish-brown with short head and great lacing. Okay, this is a tough call. There is obviously a lot of brewing competence behind this beer, in that the flavours of dry currant and woody rye really come out with no strange aftertaste and a fairly pure, organic quality. But it is far too sweet and syrupy to make it truly enjoyable in the long term -- what joker decided to stick this in a bomber? Plus the funky smell is a bit off-putting, although the rusticness grows on you. Not much other than sugar and a bit of metal, and a jammy fruitiness overall. Still, fairly unique and tasty.

Bouteille 650ml (2010) titrant à 4,5% d’alcool. De couleur rouge-brune foncée et claire. Nez fruité (léger de cassis, notes de mûres et de prunes), de grains de céréales aux notes rôties, léger de pain de siegle avec des notes herbeuses. Moyenne-mince en bouche avec un pétillement moyen ainsi qu’une texture aux notes crémeuses et aqueuses. Moyen goût fruité sucrées aux faibles traces aigres (notes de cassis et de mûres, traces de prunes) avec de faibles traces de légumes bouillis lors de l’entrée en bouche auquel se rajoute un goût de grains de céréales aux petites notes rôties et terreuses (faibles traces de brûlé) avec un léger goût de pain de seigle puis en finale l’on retrouve des notes amères de houblon herbeux (herbes mouillées). Post-goût moyen, aux notes amères de houblon herbeux avec un goût fruité (moût de cassis) ainsi que de faibles traces rôties.