When you think of canned beers, what comes to mind? Natty Light, Labatt Blue Light and Keystone? What they all have in common is their style: light lagers. But have you ever seen a stout or Scotch ale in a can? This week we will sample several canned offerings from interesting breweries.

 

Butternuts Beer and Ale

Garrattsville, N.Y.

 

Moo Thunder Stout

ABV: 4.9 percent

Rating: 3.5/5

 

Though not intense in flavor, this brew pours completely black. With a low ABV for a stout, Moo Thunder Stout isn’t too intimidating. It tastes the same as it smells: relatively light body with subtle coffee and chocolate flavors and high carbonation. For someone wanting to try an out-there canned beer, this one’s a good example.

 

Porkslap Pale Ale

ABV: 4.3 percent

Rating: 3/5

 

The style is more common for cans, but this beer stands out. It smells like most pale ales, but it has a mild herbal and floral scent that’s hard to pinpoint. These same flavors come through a little in the taste, but as far as American pale ales are concerned, there are plenty of better ones. If you buy it for the name alone, at least it will be a conversation piece at a party— the orange-soda-colored can has an interesting graphic of two pigs belly-bumping.

 

Oskar Blues Grill & Brewery

Lyons, Colo.

 

Dale’s Pale Ale

ABV: 6.5 percent

Rating: 4.5/5

 

This is one of the most delicious canned pale ales, hands down. It smells strongly of piney hops and citrusy grapefruit, but it’s partially offset with the malt nose. Upon first taste, the hop bitterness punches you in the face, quickly followed by biscuity malt to create more balance. The bitterness comes back, however, after the citrus on the finish and lingers a while. A complex and unique pale ale, Dale’s Pale Ale is worth every beer drinker’s stamp of approval.

 

Old Chub

Style: Scotch Ale

ABV: 8 percent

Rating: 4.5/5

 

With a unique name and style, Old Chub proves itself to be a true beer-fan’s beer. Weighing in at a whopping 8 percent ABV, it has an extremely complex nose consisting of flavors like coffee, chocolate, raisin, rum and toasted grains. It is extremely well balanced and full bodied, the flavors gradually changing from start to finish of each taste. If you’re feeling adventurous for a heavy but flavorful brew deceptively hidden in a can, give this bad boy a try.

 

— Compiled by Lucas Sacks, staff writer, ldsacks@syr.edu

Published on January 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm