Ice Fog IPA rolls in from Whitehorse

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/08/2015 (3961 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been a few weeks since the last time I’ve reviewed an India pale ale. After all, 2015 is the year of fruity beers, and while I do get tired of the apple, raspberry and grapefruit flavoured beers after a while, it’s hard for me to ignore them.

When the Coast to Coaster promotion came to Liquor Marts and vendors in Brandon, a few treats we’ve never seen before were available in Manitoba for the first time.

Yukon Brewing’s Yukon Holiday Kolsch came to Manitoba back in June and I absolutely enjoyed it. Now we have two new Yukon Brewing beers available in Manitoba — Belgian Gothic Saison and Ice Fog India Pale Ale.

This week I will take a look at Ice Fog IPA, Yukon’s take on an English-style India pale ale.

English-style IPAs are more mellow, sweet and malty than your standard bitter hop-forward West Coast-style IPAs. Before I purchased this, I was honestly expecting a West Coast-style — that’s the norm for IPAs in Western Canada.

Ice Fog pours a light pale honey-straw yellowish amber. There’s a lot of carbonation taking place here with one and a half fingers of light beige foam on top — which is exactly what you want in a fresh IPA: good head retention, good carbonation and little to no sediment.

The aroma of the IPA is more malt forward as expected, but I’m noticing a mild amount of various hops that give off notes of floral vibes, a hint of fresh-cut grass, a bit of a nuttiness from the malt, a hint of pepper-like spiciness from the hops and a light amount of citrus zest.

The taste starts out with a bitterness right from the start — a bitter, floral bite, followed by a bit of nuttiness and light amount of pine. There are notes of caramel maltiness, and it’s somewhat bready and reminiscent of crackers, with a bit of a lemon zest near the end. Lastly, there’s a light pine hop aftertaste which is somewhat metallic.

I was expecting Ice Fog to be more West Coast, full of bitter and tropical hops, but unfortunately this is English-style — and even then, for a English-style IPA, I was expecting more of a sweet caramel malt flavour instead of light, neutral and floral hops

My favourite Canadian example of a good English-style IPA is New Brunswick’s Picaroons’ Yippee IPA. It has a great malt profile with well balanced hops to give it a sweet yet bitter flavour.

As the Ice Fog warms up, there’s a moderate amount of pine popping up, but I found it too little too late as it doesn’t really have any other flavours to complement the hops.

Packing six per cent ABV, Ice Fog is certainly easy to drink and a great alternative to Alexander Keith’s, so I recommend this to Keith’s fans to try — something that’s as far away from Halifax as Canadian breweries can physically be.

You can find this at Liquor Marts in Brandon for $6.99 per 650ml bottle — which is slightly more expensive than most Canadian 650ml bottles — but hey, this is a beer coming right from Whitehorse.

How Canadian is that?

• Rating: 3 out of 5 pints

Cody Lobreau is a Canadian beer blogger who reviews every beer he can get his hands on as he believes that he should try every beer twice to get an understanding if it’s truly good or bad.

» BeerCrank.ca