Kichesippi Fest Märzen (5.6%)
For some reason, perhaps the early influence of the Beau’s All-Natural Brewery in Vankleek Hill, many of the breweries in the Ottawa Valley seem to excel, or at least take pride in, German beer styles. Beau’s, of course, was known for its kölsch style Lug Tread Lagered Ale, plus a host of Germanic seasonals like the late and lamented Night Märzen, and while I doubt its impact was as great as all that, many other Valley breweries have followed suit.
Tooth and Nail springs immediately to mind, but also the kölsch style Clean Cut and others from Beyond the Pale, the Gold of Big Rig and the German Pilsner of Flora Hall, the entirety of the line-up at Braumeister, which I look forward to exploring some day, and especially the beers of Kichesippi.
Founded fourteen years ago, the brewery is helmed by brewer Philip Kochanke, a man who not only understands and appreciates German beer styles to their fullest, but is also a self-confessed foam fetishist. (It’s a LinkedIn thing.)
Bright, light gold, with a nose that combines the aromas of freshly harvested grain with that of freshly malted barley, creating a cereally perfume that is neither too sweet or overly dry, but rather right down the middle, with a floral note and the merest suggestion of caramel in support.
One sip of this beer is enough to let you know that it is designed for enjoyment in multiples. (Not for nothing does the brewery have its own branded Maßkrugs!) The start is lightly sweet, with plenty of honey-ish malt character, adding a gentle hoppiness in the mid-palate that functions more to dry the taste than it does to bitter. The flavour notes are a mix of cereal and malted grain, grassiness, faint and peppery spice, and a finish that dries to completion with a very subtle alcohol warmth.
On contemplation, I find myself thinking that this beer combines the best of the Old School and New, with a malt-driven palate entry that is attractive and approachable even to a mainstream lager loyalist, and very much of the New School approach. The hop character, on the other hand, is definitely Old School, even if the malt influence is not.
Add it all up and you have a beer that deserves a Maß, a pretzel, maybe a sausage, and most certainly some unbridled revelry! Oh, and the head formation was both impressive and lasting.
89 ($3.60/473 ml)