Sue & Jim from Thunder Bay were in town last weekend for my sister's wedding, and whenever they're in town, they always bring me a bag of goodies from Sleeping Giant Brewing. While Sleeping Giant's beer is available in Manitoba at the Quality Inn, they always bring seasonal and one-off beers that will likely never make it to Manitoba. Today's beer is North American Dream Hazy IPA. The beer was created in collaboration with Thunder Bay's own The Honest Heart Collective - I love when musicians and breweries team up on a beer because you always get a unique vision from the band with a brewery making it come to life (see also Muskoka Brewing/Born Ruffians Ruff Draught beer).
North American Dream is a hazy Pale Ale brewed with heart. Double dry hopped with Columbus and Ekuanot to bring Citrus and berries to the flavourful party.
Appearance: Hazy and orange, light amount of carbonation in the body. The head is moderately thick and snow white, after a while it diminishes to leave behind a sprinkling of lacing on the side of the glass.
Aroma: The first thing I noticed was the nice herbal hop presence as I was expecting it to have a very citrus presence before anything else - herbal, a tad piney, slight amount of leafiness to it. Of course there's a decent amount of citrusness in this beer as it - notes of orange peel, hint of pineapple and melon.
Taste: This is quite a bit bitter and floral compared to most Hazy IPAs I've had in recent memory - the beer starts off with a hefty dose of pine, followed by a herbal presence and a moderately bitter and slightly metallic aftertaste to it. Once I get past the bitter/floral notes, there's a light to moderate citrus presence in there, giving off notes of melon, lemon, orange peel and a very very faint amount of pineapple at the end.
Overall Thoughts: Definitely hazy but when I think of hazy beers now days, I expect more tropical - this did have some tropical presence to it but this was definitely more bitter/floral/herbal/whatev than expecting.. which to me isn't a bad thing at all.. I'm a hop head! Definitely a solid beer and something I'd buy regularly if it was available through Liquor Marts.. but since MLCC doesn't seem to be interested in bringing beer from other provinces to this province, I probably won't ever see it in Brandon aside from when Sue and Jim come to town! Thanks Sue and Jim!
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