The Art

A new raft of beers from Tipperary start-up Canvas arrived in DrinkStore late in 2018. I picked a handful to try over the quieter days of the Christmas vacation.

First up was Sweet Gale Ale, just as the name implies, and 4.6% ABV. I poured carefully, as advised on the label, leaving a few centimetres in the bottle. The resulting blonde glassful was then only slightly hazy, with a fine lasting white foam on top. It smells sweetly herbal, of basil, rosemary and the like, though there's a mild eye-watering sour tang too, akin to a Flanders red. The flavour is clean and sweet again, the herbs joined by a subtle peppery piquancy. Some esters like you'd find in saison or weissbier add a greasy substance and a hint of banana, but not too much. It's a nifty little number, crisp and clean, and avoiding any extremes of flavour. I'd place it closest to a light saison on the style spectrum, but the sweet gale makes it its own thing. At least, I'm assuming there's real sweet gale in here as it's mentioned on the name but not in the ingredients listing. For divilment I threw the lees from the bottle into the glass at the end. It doesn't affect the flavour. Pour carelessly and with abandon.

Bellagie came next, described as a "Belgian single with elderflower" and coming in at 5.3% ABV. It poured almost completely flat, which wasn't a good start. No carbonation means no aroma, so we skip past that to the flavour which is... fine. I like a good dollop of elderflower in a beer and this has that: meadowy and summerish. The base beer behind it is quite plain, but I think I can discern its Belgian roots in the complementary honey sweetness. I thought that was all that was on offer until the sourness arrived back unexpectedly -- the spicy saltpetre of proper lambic, drying out the sugars and cleaning them off the palate. Just a little more sparkle could turn this into a champagne-like champion, but I still enjoyed the one I had more than I was expecting to from the appearance.

Number three is a barrel-aged amber ale called... [dramatic pause] The Liminal. We're up to 5.6% ABV now, which is still fairly modest. I expect amber ale to be red, but this is paler, more a light shade of copper. The aroma is very roasty; dry with coffee notes, like a stout. What's going on? That roast is still present on tasting, but gentler, about the level you'd expect in the drier sort of Irish red, which is more in keeping with the purported style. Unfortunately that sits next to a curdling vinegar sourness which I'm blaming on the red wine barrel. There's oak for sure, and fruity red grape, but it's all harsh and horrible, clashing badly with the dry coffee grounds effect. Low carbonation yet again, coupled with a thin texture, accentuates the severity of it all. The whole thing is sickly and difficult; the opposite of the good kind of odd.

A dark beer to finish out on. Corylus looked the picture of porter perfection in the glass, deepest brown with an even layer of fine off-white foam. It's not a porter, though, it's a brown ale. There are added hazelnuts but nothing on the label suggests it should be sour, and it is. There's a sweet brown ale in the background somewhere, with chocolate and maybe even those hazelnuts, but up front a balsamic vinegar sourness reigns. It's thin too, all the dark malt richness attenuated away. It's not actively unpleasant, but I don't think it's the beer it's meant to be. At 6.7% ABV it's possibly strong enough to rebrand as a Flemish-style oud bruin, assuming every bottle turned out the same way.

Canvas remains, for me, a brewery of potential. There's no doubting the fantastic creativity, done without following the predictable fashion of contemporary "daring" beer recipes. But there are still clearly quality issues. I hope they can get these sorted out soon.