Granite Brewery Best Bitter Special

Brewed by Granite Brewery (Toronto)
Style: Bitter
Toronto, Canada

Nut brown. Malty, medium sweet, lightly burnt, nutty. More hop aroma and more bitter than their regular Best Bitter.

Golden amber. Hazy. 1 cm foam. Foresty, earthy hop aroma with undertones of Ringwood yeast. Diacetyl on the palate, over which juicy hops are layered. A few breadcrusty notes are somewhere in the middle. Moderate bitterness. Slight cookie-dough notes. Light bodied and very drinkable.

Strong dry-hopped aroma, but additional slightly unpleasant element. Body is OK, but the bitterness is a bit stale, and the flavor a strong fall from their regular Best Bitter.

Objectively speaking: The dry-hopped version of the best bitter. Hoppier, but less easy to drink.
I like: Keeps more or less the same authenticity in the malt profile than the best bitter.
I dislike: Its fresh hops bouquet does not provide much. We’re simply getting further away from Britain, it’s sharper without feeling fresher and even becomes a bit less easy to drink in my mind. More intense, but it becomes harder to capt the toasty nuances from the malts.

Tame grassy hops and caramel malt idleness...Languid floral notes in good cask feel...Monotony in the form of a bitter...

Tap at Ginger’s Tavern. I’m not really sure why this is a separate beer, since it is only their Best Bitter that’s dry-hopped with Fuggles. Amber colour beer, thick white head and sticky lace. Earthy and slight resin are the dominant aromas. Moderate toasted maltiness. Flavour is quite thin, lightly sour and astringent. Thinnish body but okay. Very dry finish. Flavour is less earthy than the aroma. Decent bitterness.

subtil nose of butterscotch with more hops than the reg. bitter. Malty taste with dry hooping noticeable. Again, thin but enjoyable.

Cask pint at the Henry House in Halifax, NS (May 2007). Pours a clear amber-copper with just a whisper of head (lasting) and a touch of lacing as it gets drunk....big fruity-floral hoppy aroma, apricots and dogwood dominate but there are hints of cherry blossom and tart cider apples as well....very smooth and light with a nice twinge of dry hop character at the finish....but alas, the mouthfeel is rather watery and dull and the natural carbonation doesn’t really help matters in this case, a little more fizz might have given it the zip it needed....still not at all bad, but a bit of a disappointment for me after several fine Granite pints.