I was recently in Jasper, and as mentioned in my post on Russell’s Angry Scotch Ale, I like to drop into the small liquor stores that are along my travel routes to look for new and interesting beer. I do this for a couple reasons, the first is I just like to see the stores and talk to the beer guys, and the second is that I am pretty familiar with my local places and it’s nice to see what other beer stores like to promote. It’s through doing this that I managed to come across Cannery Brewing‘s Kiss Yer Cousin Kentucky Common. The label is what grabbed my eye, it’s illustrated by an artist named Erin Jankowski and shows a bearded man who has made friends with a couple of mice. It’s the hillbilly version of Cinderella that everyone has wanted to see made for years – and this one comes with beer.
Appearance: I cracked the seal on the bottle and poured its contents into a pint glass, watching the tan head develop at the top of the glass into two-fingers of beauty. But like all beauty, it is fleeting. The head went away like it was on the run from the law. The colour is a nice, clear dark brown, which is very inviting.
Aroma: This beer is a little different than the norm, and that comes through when you take a deep breath of the aroma. The beer is made with corn, which gives the beer a grainy smell. There are some notes of apple that are quite nice, but the smell on the forefront is grain.
Taste: Tasting the beer offers you some bread-like characteristics that are pleasant, and there is a dry finish. You can pick up some biscuit flavours right before you are hit with a mild bitterness on the tail-end of the drink. The beer has 15 IBU, which allows the drink to finish with some bitterness without the hops being the star of the show.
Feel: This beer doesn’t have the weight that I was expecting. It’s a lighter bodied ale and goes down fairly easy. There is not a lot of carbonation, which leaves me wishing there was more.
Overall: This beer has a unique taste. The corn offers an interesting flavour profile that you don’t get in a lot of beers. There is some mild bitterness on the finish, but I found myself wanting more punch. I think ramping up the IBU on this beer would help. The true test of a beer is whether or not you’d have it again and if I were offered Kiss Yer Cousin Kentucky Common again, I would do a scan of the beer fridge to see what else was available before popping the top on this one again.
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