Spearhead Brewing Company, which is one of Ontario’s most inventive contract brewers, has established a knack for making delicious beer with oddball ingredients. For its first release, the Hawaiian Pale Ale, it used pineapple, and now the brewery has spiked its second creation, the Moroccan Brown Ale, with figs, raisins, dates and cinnamon.
The beer pours a chestnut brown with a strong undertone of red when held to the light. Typical for the style, it’s lightly carbonated, but it does raise a creamy, tan head. The aroma of dried fruit with a touch of spice leads smoothly into a flavour that combines layers of sweetness — from the raisins, figs and dates — and ends on a note of restrained hop bitterness with a touch of copper penny.
By serving the Moroccan Brown Ale near the top of the suggested serving temperature range (around 10 degrees Celsius) you’ll get more of the fruit-derived flavours.
Compared to pale ale, brown ale has received a lot less attention from craft beer fans. It’s a regional English style, and this one is based on the American equivalent. The style’s two best-known characteristics are that it goes down easy after a day of labour in a coal mine and that it pairs very well with certain British-leaning food.
This beer is no exception — if anything, it almost needs food to bring out its best qualities. With any meat that is salty, smoky or grilled, the beer’s complex sweet elements of dried fruit and warm spice are magnified, and they complement the slightly bitter flavors of the charred end bits. A grilled steak sandwich with a dollop of spicy chutney, or garlicky, thin-gauge lamb sausages would be an excellent partner for this beer.
The Moroccan Brown Ale has been available on tap at various bars throughout the city, and it was just released at the LCBO.
Spearhead Brewing Company Moroccan Brown Ale, $13.95 for six 355 mL bottles, LCBO #337295
In addition to covering beer, new restaurants and food trucks for Post City, David Ort writes about food and drink for several Toronto publications including Spotlight Toronto and his own site, Food With Legs. For more of his thoughts on food, beer and life in general, follow him on Twitter.