I am usually a bit tardy getting around to sampling new releases, what with life busy-ness, being too lazy to trek to the liquor store and wanting to watch consumption levels. Often I don’t get to a new beer until weeks after it has been released. That might make me a bad beer guy, but such is the reality of this kind of sideline gig.

However, I got the rare moment of actually sampling a new beer before it has even been launched! I was in Sherbrooke yesterday doing some research for my CBC column, and I happened to be in the beer cooler at the very moment staff were putting Alley Kat’s two new beer on the shelves.

The two beer are Golden Dragon, which is the latest Dragon Series creation using Galena hops, and CollaBREWation Porter, Alley Kat’s collaboration beer  with New Zealand’s 8-Wired Brewery. Alley Kat actually has a launch party today (July 4) for both beer at the brewery, from 5 to 8. Which means I officially got to sample the beer before it was released. How fortuitous was that?

Of course, as it was a weeknight I could only sample one and had to choose. I opted for the collaboration porter (I hope to get to the Dragon in the next couple days). The beer is a robust porter brewed with nelson sauvin hops and Manuka wood smoke as the New Zealand contribution and Saskatoon berries and locally produced honey for the Alberta additions.

It is a deep, opaque dark brown beer that builds a dense, tightly beaded light tan head that leaves a consistent lacing wall on the glasss. In the aroma there is dark chocolate, hints of french roast coffee, a lingering woody smoke accent, some raisin with touches of burnt caramel. The front of the sip reveals an understated fruity sweetness matched by light coffee, smoke and a touch of wood upfront. The middle dries out rather quickly as a more tart fruitiness moves in. There is a tropical fruit hop character lingering in the background as well, plus some sharper lemony notes. Neither the Saskatoons nor the Nelson Sauvin hops make their presence known directly, but they seem to create a symbiosis of a tart, sharp, tropical fruit character to the beer. In the finish more dark fruit, sharp wood and roasted malt come to the surface. It finishes surprisingly dry. The honey never really appears amidst the smoke, fruit and hops.

This is a multi-layered, intriguing beer. None of the features of the beer are big, nor does any one dominate. What is admirable about this beer is how well the collage of flavours work together – smoke, tart berry and tropical hop notes. Subtlety seems to be the name of the tune in this collaboration. I might call for a bit more body. My guess is the honey fermented fairly thoroughly drying out the beer and the smoke heightens its sharp impression. I like its subtle complexity. The breweries might be about 12,000 km apart, but clearly they share a lot of common ground in how to produce beer.

It is one of those beer I want to try again, to probe further some of its quiet qualities. Next up the Golden Dragon.