If you’ve been following along with the beer scene in Toronto, you will know that there are a bunch of fairly new breweries popping up. Some are bricks and mortar (Bellwoods is now officially open!) and a few are contract breweries (including Double Trouble, who I work for). Junction is one of the latter, and has already gained a great following for their Conductor’s Craft Ale, a hoppy spicy pale ale. Currently, their beer is only available on draught or cask, but they have great coverage, so it isn’t hard to find. I got hooked up with a sample to review a while back, when we got our first cask of Super Conductor (Conductor’s dry-hopped alter-ego) at Castro’s and have been waiting (too long) to review it. Let’s do this thing!
Conductors Craft Ale - Junction Craft Brewing
From a sample tallboy with a logo sticker on it, Conductor Craft pours a dark amber colour, a little hazy, like a beautiful wildflower honey. About 1″ of dense head drops to a thick film that lingers through the whole drink. Aroma is lovely and hoppy, hints of citrus and nice spicy notes. Something about the spice has a nearly Belgian ale quality in the aroma. There’s a decent sweet note under the fragrant hops, with the promise of good things to come. Taste is lovely, sweet immediately, bready and rich, but then the hops come roaring in. Big and juicy, with a great dose of citrus, nearly lemony, then spicy and nearly prickly. Towards the back of the palate, the bitterness becomes very drying on your tongue and cheeks, but somehow a hint of sweetness carries through on the finish, lingering with the dry hoppy presence in your mouth. This particular sample seems a little heavily carbonated, though I’ve had it on draught and it is a little prickly and effervescent keeping the hop weight from becoming over-powering. While it might be a tad hoppy for the uninitiated, for me, this is a perfect session beer, one that I can drink all night. Top secret: the Super Conductor cask version is magical. And it gets around the city, so keep your eye out for it.
Cheers to Tom and Doug at Junction!
About The Brewery
Sometimes a lot of thought goes into making something simple and enjoyable. The way we look at it, we do the thinking so you can relax and enjoy the drinking.
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