BC Beer Bloggers Local Winter Favourites Part 1 – Bridge Brewing The Grinch Beer #2

BC Beer Bloggers Local Winter Favourites – This special review is part of a multi-blog collaboration between five BC Beer Bloggers (including a guest from over the mountains in Alberta) where we each chose our top three local winter releases and are blogging about them. Please take a look at the bottom of this review for the other links to see all the beers we chose in no particular order and bookmark these sites so you can check them often. I chose this particular beer for two specific reasons, one being that I like how it tastes and two because I love the story of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, a book my parents often read to me when I was younger and one I read to my kids now. I mean who doesn’t love the cartoon movie (not the live action one) that features the iconic song “You’re a Mean One” vocalized by a guy with by far the coolest name on the planet named Thurl Ravenscroft. Notably, Thurl also sings the “Grim Grinning Ghosts” song in Disneyland’s Haunted House, another favourite haunting of mine.

Bridge Brewing The Grinch: Is a Winter Ale brewed in North Vancouver, BC at a strength of 6.5% by a fairly new brewery. It was released last year so I was happy to see it reappear for another season since last year’s release was a hit in my books.

Aroma and Appearance: It pours a brown colour with hints of red and a small layer of foam with some bubbles that rise up in the center of the glass. The aroma is full of winter spices like nutmeg, gingerbread, cinnamon and sweetbread.

Flavour: Up front, there is lots of gingerbread and some cinnamon, followed by chocolate, allspice, and caramel while it finishes with a dry pine resin and nutmeg aftertaste.

Overall Impression: There was a lot of ginger bread and ginger in this year’s release, or at least more than I remember. It really did make it taste, well, like Christmas.

Rating: I give it a solid 8/10 as in excellent, very appropriate for the season as Christmas starts to approach.

Food Pairing: Christmas cakes, spiced coffee cake, the dreaded fruit cake, they would all work well with this one.

Speaking of the iconic song, this is one of those singing ornaments from Hallmark so I had to press the button at least few times while drinking this beer and listen to the song.

Participating Bloggers: be sure to check them daily, I’ll add in their links as they go up!

West Coast Beer Geek – A beer geeks perspective on craft beer, beer events, beer pairings and more.

Mike’s Craft Beer – Not for the weak of taste buds. Lots of great beer reviews, brewery reviews and events on this site.

Dennis the Foodie – Weaving a personal story of food and beer in Vancouver, BC. Very thorough food reviews, great photos and beer pairings.

Western Suds – An Alberta craft beer blog written by a craft beer enthusiast and ambassador for the growing Alberta craft beer scene.

Beer Rater – A beer guide without all the fluff, just some straight forward drinking advice.

How to stay tuned into what we are doing? Look for the hashtag #bcbeerbloggers as we will be using it a lot. Please engage us in conversations, enjoy our posts, try these beers and share our work if you like it.