The Gimli Rydler

During isolation for COVID, I got bored and started thinking of some beer "cocktails" that would be fun to try. Since I'm not good at coming up with any good ideas, the only thing I ended up coming up with was the Gimli Rydler. What I was planning on doing was getting a Manitoban-made Radler and add Gimli's Crown Royal Peach-flavoured Whisky to it, but after having a chat with one of my favourite LC product consultants about it, they felt that Whisky itself could work but the flavour of the peach would likely clash with the flavour of grapefruit in the Radler. They suggested I should use a Lager/Pilsner/Blonde Ale. I ended using Torque's Blonde Ale to use as the base of the beverage, though there's many Manitoban beers that would work just as well for this beer.

The cocktail is easy:

• 1-355mL or 473mL can of Torque Blonde. The only clean glass I could find was one meant for standard 355mL beers so I have a bit of beer left over. (sorry about it not looking clean, farm water does that)
• 40mL (1.4oz) of Crown Royal. Feel free to adjust accordingly. I added the Whisky first
• Enjoy!

So how was the cocktail? The first thing I get from it is definitely the taste of peach or peach syrup, it's subtle but it has a sweetness that comes out in every sip. The next thing I get is a bit of the Whisky, it's actually not clashing with the beer in any way so it just gives off a bit of a rye/corn bite to it, nor does it really have any noticeable oakiness popping out to it. Torque's Blonde is still tasting like a Blonde Ale to me, crisp, a tad grainy, sweet and still fairly smooth.

Do I recommend this? It's pretty decent. This is pretty much a boilermaker but this doesn't remind me of a boilermaker as the peach flavour is much more prolific than the whisky itself. Seeing that Radlers are typically 2.5-to-4.0% ABV, this is definitely not going to be a Radler either!

I have a can of Half Pints' Bikey McBikeface waiting in my fridge, I'll probably try this with that tonight, if it turns out that ends up being a better tasting cocktail than this, I'll probably scrap and re-write this completely! Edit: Tried it and the grapefruit definitely clashed with the peach, and the subtle taste of the whisky was a bit too sharp for such a sweet beer.. so I guess a Lager/Blonde Ale was the best choice.

Looking back, I probably should have posted this on Manitoba Day for Manitoba 150, but hindsight is 20/20 and it's still MB 150 for several more months!