Church-Key Holy Smoke

Brewed by Church-Key Brewing
Style: Smoked
Pethericks Corners, Canada

On tap at c’est what. Pours a dark chestnut body with a caramel coloured head. Aroma is mildly smokey and roasted malt. Taste is almost hickory like with some sweetness as well. A slight bitterness in the aftertaste as well. I am not too familiar with smoked beers, but am looking forward to trying more.

Decent bitter beer. Has a flavour similar to Guinness and I would not mind having it again on tap.

On tap - BeerBistro Toronto. Wonderful black beer with good smokiness and roastiness. Seems to be a smoked porter which is fast becoming one of my favourite styles. Very good drinkable beer.

Experienced on tap at the Honest Judge. Tapped a dark clear mahogany color with a frothy dirty cap. Smells very "medicinal"....with some fruit and spice. Started thin with an overpowering smoke taste the body was thin for such a good looking ale,then finished rather tart with the hops kicking in. A let down for such a good looking ale. But I may be biased as smoked malt beers are not really my favorite drink....for those who are, this is probably a pretty fair drink.

Pours dark brown/reddish. Quick disipating tan frothy head. Smokey coffee roast with hints of chocolate and fresh bread aroma. Smoke flavour is medium. Body is kind of thin and watery. Smoke is a nice element but dies off to nothing more than a bit of spice. Its good and the first appearance is lovely. First tapped smoked beer for me.

Time for a re-rate on one of my first ratings. When this beer is on, that is fresh and full of flavour, it is one of my favourite Ontario Micro’s. It has tons of peat smoke in aroma, the body is that of an old style porter, it has tons of rich, smoked malt flavour, again all peat, and there is a lovely lingering bitterness. I can, and have, drank these all night. But consistently has always been a problem and this year I have found the bottles and the tap versions to be very disappointing. I’ve long been a champion of these guys and I hope they can regain some of the consistency that made them my favourite Ontario microbrewer. My rating will be an average of my bottles/pints over the past 2 years.

It lives up to its name! Quite smokey but strangely devoid of some of the harshness associated with the style. More of a dark with a nice aftertaste.

Beautiful dark amber colour that starts off with a nice roasted bitterness with a peaty lingering finish. Definately not for everyone, but a must try for dark beer lovers. Had it at the Bow and Arrow in Toronto.