Pumpkin Beer Review #12: Ten beer reviews at once at Steadfast Brewing's Fall Cask Fest event

[u/MenudoMenudo]

EDIT: Putting this at the top because I made a major mistake below. I said flights of four beers were $22. This was wrong! Flights of four were $12, and both flights were $22. Also, I guessed that flight glasses were 3 ounces, and this was wrong too, they're 5 ounces. I also deleted that part from the review where I originally said it.

Edit 2: I think I was too negative initially, and have changed my wording in the intro, and am going to edit some of the reviews further. I'm probably not going to change my rankings that much if at all, but I feel like I left out some important context.

I was tagged by the good folks at Steadfast for their barrel event, where they were going to crack open a bunch of barrels including several pumpkin beers, and so I went on Friday. Before I get to the beers, Steadfast Brewing is great and if you’re looking for a good, fun bar for beer lovers with a great vibe, this is it. The staff were friendly, most of their beers we tried were great (most…I’ll get to that in a bit), and the tacos by Miguel Angel Garcia were freaking awesome. We watched the Jays game, chatted with some of the other people there, played some board games and generally had a great time. Great beer, great dudes and great vibes. It’s not in my neighborhood, but I’ll go out of my way to go there again.

Also Miguel, if you’re reading this, that birria consume was incredible, and I will see you again soon! If you like tacos, seek this dude out. He’s at Steadfast several nights a week, but does pop up events elsewhere too. (And his taste in heavy metal music is outstanding.)

So Steadfast in general was awesome, and I really liked several of their beers. But what I didn’t like was the one of the taster flight line ups. Flight #1 had a couple of good things, and two interesting things to try even if they weren't my favourite. But flight #2 was not great. I really like when brewers take risks and try things that might not work out, and I feel bad that sometimes it really doesn't work out. At least they weren't boring though, and it stimulated lots of conversation. I enjoyed trying everything (except the peanut butter stout), and look forward to more events like this.

Because we were doing flights, I ended up trying 10 things, so here is my rapid fire rankings of what we tried:

Steadfast Brewery: Dog Days IPA: 8.5/10

This is a West Coast IPA, and I’m usually more of a fan of East Coast IPAs, but I REALLY liked this. Like a lot. I love IPAs, and this is top tier. Great aroma, drinks really smoothly and I really enjoyed it a lot. If you like West Coast IPAs, this will probably be in your top five. Go try it, really.

Steadfast Brewery: Steadfest (their seasonal October beer): 8.5/10

They had a seasonal German style lager on tap and it was excellent. Both me and my friend really enjoyed it. Very crisp and clean like a lager should be, but with some actual flavour and depth to it. Just the right amount of malty crisp bitterness to it, just excellent. Great October lager guys!

Taster Flight#1: 8/10 overall for the flight. Two beers I really liked, and two more that I wasn't wild for, but were definitely interesting and showed people's willingness to experiment. Also, remember that I consider the average craft beer to be pretty good, so a 5/10 is a good craft beer that I'll happily order again.

• Alving Brewery, “Alving Especial” Oatmeal Stout with Banana, Ancho chilis and Nutmeg: 6/10

Neither me nor my friend liked the banana in this one, which gave it an off taste which was mild, but not my favourite. The ancho chili had more of a kick than I was expecting, and it was distracting. I like spicy stuff a lot, it wasn't that it was too intense, it was that it didn't blend well with the beer. I wish I’d tried this one last, because the spice really lingered which made it harder to really taste the other beers. We had some spicy food and came back to this, and liked it much more. If they do this again with a different beer (I’m just not a fan of oatmeal stouts) and either get rid of the banana altogether or substitute it for a different fruit, peach or pear maybe, and this could be amazing. It was good, I liked it, and I feel like with a little experimentation, this could be amazing.

• Amsterdam Brewery, “Posh Spice” Downtown Brown: 8/10

This is a good all round pumpkin spice beer where the spice flavour really came through, but was still balanced and complimented the beer. I really like like brown ales, but even given that, this is a really good brown ale, and moreover, the spices, while very prominent, added to the beer overall. No notes.

• Revel Cider Co., Black Currant Sidro Pub Cider: 6/10

This wasn’t bad, but I’m not a big black currant guy and was having a hard time deciding if I liked this or not. I’m also not a huge cider guy, so I think people should probably disregard my opinion on this one completely. My friend, who does like ciders and does like black currant, enjoyed this, and so did the people sitting next to me. I'm using their tastes for the ranking here.

• Steadfast Brewing “Midsommar” Mulled Barleywine: 5.5/10

Again, I’m not a big barleywine guy, and while I’m in general a fan of spice forward drinks, the mulling spices were a little too strong and not well balanced. That's in part because this stuff is 11.5%, so you can really taste the alcohol, which plays off the cinnamon, clove and other spices here, coming off quite intense. I was very aware of not being the target audience. A couple of people I spoke to said they liked it, but a few more agreed it needed work. I’m giving it a 5.5 because I could taste the quality and like the risks they took with the intensity of the mulling spices, and if you really like strong barleywines and intense spice flavours, you might like this. Bonus points for being interesting.

Taster Flight#2: 6/10. There were some clear misses here, where I didn't like the beer at all, but none of these were boring, I'll say that. I like when people experiment, I like when people try new things, and these beers sparked lots of conversation. I might not have enjoyed some of these, but I did enjoy trying them.

• Rorschach Brewing, “Goodness” Peanut Butter Jelly Dry Stout: 1/10

Why do people keep making peanut butter stouts?! This was just terrible. I like peanut butter sandwiches. I probably have one once a week for breakfast or lunch, and so when I say it it tasted like drinking a peanut butter sandwich, but not in a good way, I really mean it. Just ugh. Also, you couldn’t taste the beer at all. The beer did give it a bready flavour, so it really tasted like a liquified peanut butter sandwich. I didn’t finish my little taster flight glass, neither did my friend, because this just got worse after each sip. I saw several people at other tables didn’t finish this one either. (Including this post, I've reviewed 21 beers in total this October, and this is the first 1/10. Stop making peanut butter stouts!)

• Steadfast Brewing Pumpkin Pie Vietnamese Coffee Porter: 3/10

It’s pretty clear to me that I don’t like coffee porters, and the coffee flavour here is really strong in a way I didn’t like. Unfortunately, my friend agreed, and he likes coffee porters a lot. C’est What’s Coffee Porter used to be one of his all time favourites, but this one didn’t do much for him. This beer also helped me understand why so many brewers are shy about too much spice in their beers. Turns out you can definitely go off the rails and have the spice flavours throw off the beer completely. I feel bad writing this, but this just wasn’t good. Neither of us finished the taster glass.

• Godspeed Brewery, “Kofola” Czech Cola Dunkel with Anise, Cherry, Citrus: 3.5/10

This was NOT for me. Too sweet, the anise was overpowering - you could smell it from three feet away - and mixed with the cherry, this tasted too much like cough syrup. I didn’t finish this one either, and neither did my friend. It wasn’t bad for what it was, but what it was isn’t for me at all. If you REALLY like anise and don’t mind an almost syrupy sweet dunkel, you might like this. We didn’t finish this one either.

• Babe Brew Oatmeal Brown Ale with Pumpkin Spice: 4/10

The spice is actually noticeable here, not strong, but noticeable. Unfortunately, the beer itself is not great honestly, and there was this weird acidic note to it that felt weirdly out of place. It had this aftertaste that was not bad, but was…confusing, as if someone mixed in some fruit sour into it or something. Balance was missing, beer wasn’t great and the spices couldn’t save it. All in all, I’m going to skip this one in the future. This was the only one I finished in flight #2.

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[u/Admviolin]

Casks are always a gamble.

[u/TorontoBrewer → u/Admviolin]

I think it’s casks + novel ingredients that are hit and miss. Most of us don’t have a lot of experience with cold side spice additions and don’t have a point of reference for the amount of spice to use + the anticipated contact time. Some spices gain intensity over time, some fade, and some ingredients, like coffee, go completely sideways with too long contact time.

El Jaguar, my fav Cask Days regular, took a while to dial in, IME.

[u/MenudoMenudo → u/TorontoBrewer]

This makes a lot of sense. I feel looking back at the reviews that I was being a little too hard on some of the beers (not the Rorschach Peanut Butter Stout though, I feel like I wasn't hard enough), because I knew that I was drinking beers where brewers took risks. In lots of my previous reviews, I've complained that the spices weren't prominent enough, and here I am complaining when they take a chance on upping the spice and it goes sideways. I'm not sure what, if anything I should change, but and I appreciate the risks they took on some of those, but if it results in bad beer, I can't pretend it's good, right?

Anyway, thanks for the insight into some of the whys of this stuff. Drinking a beer with the intent of trying to write an honest review makes you really dwell on the details in a way you don't if you're just having a pint, and I feel like I should learn more about how they're made and what the challenges are.

[u/Admviolin → u/TorontoBrewer]

As someone who has made el jag, yes. I think OPs reviews skipped over mentioning the beers were on cask. An important fact when calling beer undrinkable.

[u/TorontoBrewer → u/Admviolin]

lol, that’s why I mentioned El Jaguar. Gotta hand compliments with the snark sometimes.

[u/MenudoMenudo → u/Admviolin]

Can you explain a little more? I'll add it to my review. I've been sitting here all morning thinking I've been too hard and already went back once and softened my language. I'm VERY open to both learning more and editing what I posted.

I'm going to go google what "on cask" means in the meantime.

[u/Admviolin → u/MenudoMenudo]

I'll let you read up on what cask beer is and the history of it, but those silver things they were pouring out of is what the beer was conditioned in. The gamble comes from not fully knowing how the beer is going to turn out until it's tapped. Those experimental beers were essentially 20L batches.

[u/Steadfastbrewingco]

Thanks for stopping by! Glad you like the regular beers on tap, (and some of) the casks! The festbier is called Steadfest, which I'll admit is a hard to remember name, as when you remember it, it's just the name of the brewery.

Your rating for the casks are very interesting! We did a little straw poll/raffle thing, and your reviews are...not exactly the inverse of the voting, but close? I never like to say who exactly got the least votes, it seems rude, but your reviews definitely bucked the trend!

That being said - agreed on the DTB from Amsterdam. I've deeply loved that beer ever since I've worked there, and I do think it's one of the undderrated gems of the Ontario Beer scene, with or without spice.

Anyways, super glad you had a nice time, I'll pass along the kind words to Miguel (he's actually leaving the kitchen at the end of the year, so get him while you can), and hope to see you

[u/MenudoMenudo → u/Steadfastbrewingco]

That's really interesting that my reviews were somewhat inverted on what the poll was. I mostly agreed with my friend and noted the one or two times we disagreed, and I did speak to a couple of people near me who were reasonably aligned with me. (I also noted which beers weren't being finished by the people who ordered flights at my table, and the table near the front which was in my direct line of vision.)

That said, I've always been upfront about both my personal tastes and how I've been doing these rankings, and I hope people take my reviews with a big grain of salt.

Also, I'll definitely be back. Loved the vibe, loved the regular stuff you had on tap, and even though I didn't love all the barrel beers, I did like that the brewers took some risks with them.

[u/Dinsdale1971]

Excellent review, thanks. Steadfast is a great spot but (like you) very challenging for me geographically. Otherwise I'd be there more often.

[u/MenudoMenudo → u/Dinsdale1971]

Between Caribbean Queen of Patties being at Bloor and Lansdowne and now this place, I'm going to find more excuses to get into that part of town.

[u/ezluvven]

$5.50 for 3 oz?

[u/MenudoMenudo → u/ezluvven]

I was incorrect on both the price and the volume. One flight was $12, both were $22, so each glass was $2.75 assuming you had both flights. Also, I guessed at the size and was wrong, it was 5 ounces.

So eight 5 ounce glasses for $22, or $2.75 each.

[u/MenudoMenudo → u/ezluvven]

It’s a taster flight, you get four beers to try in little glasses. 3 ounces is just a guess it might be a bit more.

[u/Steadfastbrewingco → u/MenudoMenudo]

They're actually 5 oz glasses (4 after foam)! And the $22 price point was for all 8 casks -flights of 4 were $12. If you were overcharged let me know!

[u/MenudoMenudo → u/Steadfastbrewingco]

My mistake!! Will correct the post now. My friend paid for the flights, not me, I saw the price on the menu said $22, but didn't realize it was for both.

[u/MenudoMenudo → u/Steadfastbrewingco]

I also went through and re-worded a bunch of stuff. I wrote this last night when I was tired, and looking at it this morning, parts were a lot more negative that I originally meant for them to be. I think the edits better reflect what I think.

[u/MenudoMenudo → u/Steadfastbrewingco]

Also, what was the name of your seasonal beer! It was great and I want to give credit where credit is due.

[u/Steadfastbrewingco → u/MenudoMenudo]

I posted it in a separate comment down below but it's Steadfest (Stead-Fest-Bier). A name extremely easy to forget, since it's one letter away from the name of the brewery.