Old Mill Elora Irish Ale

Brewed by Trafalgar Brewing
Style: Irish Ale
Oakville, Canada

[312-20070510] Bottle. Some citrus hops aroma. Hazy, brown red body with lots of small bubbles and a big foamy off-white head. Boozy flavour with some sweet fruit. Medium-full body. Not unpleasant. (6/3/6/3/11) 2.9

[2054B-20090329] 341mL bottle. Smoky toasted malt aroma. Clear, dark brown red body with a long-lasting foamy light tan head. More smoky toasted grains flavour. Medium body. Average. (5/3/6/3/12) 2.9

Bottle (650ml). I made sure to grab the freshest bottle on the shelf so as to hopefully avoid the dreaded Trafalgar infected bottle curse. Cross my fingers. Pours a clear amber with an average size diminishing off-white head. Aroma mainly of caramel malt with some light hops and some sweetness -- simple but decent enough. Flavour, like the aroma, is predominantly of caramel malt with some light hops and a light bitter finish. Light bodied. Luckily this bottle had no infection and this was actually decent and drinkable.

Dark brown colour with a white lacing head. Doesn’t have much of an aroma. Slightly metallic taste with a very weak "irish ale" style sweet and malty taste (very weak!)

Ew. Well, I might as well rate this, since I shelled out the cash for this travesty of a beer...firstly, it smells absolutely terrible. Like rotten corn and toffee, only one of which belongs in a beer. Upon pouring it - nice reddish-brown colour, I would like to add - the smell took on a slightly more beer-like quality, and I was imbued with enough confidence to drink the stuff. Immediately, I realized that I was expecting the wrong kind of taste, and had to "switch" my palate to the "okay, forgive them" setting. The taste is corn, some hops, water, and maybe caramel? Malts are almost nonexistent, and quite honestly, I’m sure this is a new bottle, but it *really* tastes spoiled. Maybe it’s just me, but when I taste this much corn in a beer, it totally turns me off. Dress it up any way you like, it’s still gross. Any redeeming qualities this beer might have are hidden behind a wave of sour corn and failed malts. I had maybe 1/8 of the bottle and then dumped it. Terrible.

This may well be the best offering from this unfortunate brewery, though that’s not saying a lot. Some buttery malts and a bit of fresh hops. No brewing flaws in mine, but maybe the bottle was very new. Still, thin mouthfeel, as this brewery insists on for some reason.

Nothing special here. A beer that’s drinkable on hot summer days, but that’s it. I expected more.

Bottle from LCBO- Root beer pour with a thick and foamy, albeit short lived mocha head. Mildly roasted nutty aroma with some faint malts and beef broth. Slightly roasty sweet nut and malt flavour. Mildly hopped with some bitterness. Finish is actually pretty tasty if you can get past how watery it is.

650ml brown bottle. Poured chestnut brown, fast vanishing white head. Dusty malt aroma, toffee. Light roasty malt flavour, some cola sweetness. Very light hop note coming in at the end. Drying roasted finish. Light body and carboantion.