Tim Kramer, the young brewer at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan’s Paddock Wood Brewing, passed through Toronto lately laden down with bottles of his most recent creations, including the Loki Double IPA. Never one to pass up the chance to sample something new, I met up with him at Toronto’s Bar Volo and swapped a taste of a 15 year old barleywine – and more about that next week! – for a couple of bottles of his cargo.

Bottle-conditioned with a fair amount of sediment laying on the bottom – thus requiring careful decanting – Loki is brownish copper in colour and offers a good degree of fruitiness in the nose, like candied orange and peach, alongside notes of grapefruit and butterscotch. On the palate, though, the beer shifts course rather dramatically, hitting with but a whisper of fruity sweetness before coming forward with a great deal of hoppiness. Brewer Kramer says that he is an unapologetic hophead and it shows here, with rampaging flavours of spicy, green hop and citrus peel held in check by, well, practically nothing.

The finish mellows out so the palate doesn’t feel quite so assaulted, but more maltiness would make this a much more balanced and considerably less harsh ale. What Kramer does quite well, however, is hide Loki’s considerable strength, so perhaps the aggressive hoppiness is more a warning not to get too carried away with this beer!

The Ontario Craft Brewers have just released the third in their “mixed six” discovery packs, and it is certainly the best yet. That does not mean, however, that it’s perfect.

Bouquet: Making it a six of 473 ml cans is a stroke of genius, highlighting as it does the recent efforts of Ontario brewers to enter the canned beer market.

Brickbat: With two pale and one amber lagers, plus a cream ale, variety could have been a lot better. Why Neustadt saw fit to include their Neustadt Lager rather than their highly user-friendly, award winning 10×30, for instance, is a mystery to me.

Bouquet: That said, we see here a pale ale, a dark ale, a cream ale and the aforementioned lagers, which is still more variety than we’ve seen in the past.

Bouquet: The compact cube shape of the carton is great design.

Bouquet: And including a “Craft Beer Style Guide” is an inspired bit of promotional work.

Brickbat: Regarding that “Style Guide,” what’s with the “Refreshing Thirst Quenchin’ Ales” descriptor? Is “Quenchin’” supposed to show how populist the OCB is?

Brickbat: The general public isn’t going to see this, but some of the descriptions in the press release that accompanied my sample pack are just way over the top. For Paddy’s Irish Red Lager, “…was created in the 1800`s by master brewer George Henry Lett.” Cribbing from the history notes for Killian’s Irish Red will win you no admirers, Trafalgar, and by the way, Lett’s beer was an ale, not a lager. For the Neustadt Lager, “Brewed in the Belgium country style…” Huh? What’s that when it’s at home? For Muskoka Cream Ale, “‘A great food-friendly beer,’ says beer author Jamie MacKinnon, who gave it four stars in The Great Lakes Beer Guide.” With all due respect to Jamie, that book is a dozen years old, which means the research is just that much older, and that’s the best you can do to hype your flagship brand?

Final Bouquet: Brickbats aside, I think this is another good effort from the OCB and one I would encourage people to pursue. It is available at LCBO stores for $14.95.